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THE 



MONONGAHELA OF OLD; 



OR, 



HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF SOUTH-WESTERN 
PENNSYLVANIA TO THE YEAR 1800. 



JAMES VEECH. 



FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. 



PITTSBURGH 
1858-1892. 



X 



[This unfinished work of the author, which has been " in sheets " since 1858, is now 
issued for private distribution only. By the addition of pages 241-259, which were 
included in a pamphlet issued in 1857, entitled " Mason and Dixon's Line," the cliapter 
relating to the boundary controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia is completed.] 



f^ec0tv«d frortft 

CoDvright Office. 

MAR 4 1911 



Copyright : 

Mrs. E. V. Blainb. 

1892. 



L-'^^^^^ 



THE MOIOIGAHELA OF OLD 



CHAPTER I. 

ANTIQUITIES. 

Ante-Indian Inhabitants — Old Forts ; their forms ; sites ; localities — Mounds — Indian 
Towns — Indians Graves — Curious chain. 

Of tlie original liuman iuhabitants of the territory, of which 
Fayette county is a part, we know but little. When Anglo-Saxon 
traders and hunters first penetrated its wilds, it was the hunting 
ground of the Mingo Indians, or Six Nations : ^ the seat of whose 
power and chief population was Western ISTew York. Delawares, 
whose original home was the western shore of the river of that 
name, and Shawnese, who came from the Cumberland river, were 
also found. But that these were the successors of a race more 
intelligent, or of a people of different habits of life, seems clearly 
deducible from the remains of fortifications scattered all over the 
territory, and which are very distinct from those known to have 
been constructed by the tribes of Indians named, or any of their 
modern compeers. 

These remains of embankments, or "old forts," are numerous 
in Fayette county. That they are very ancient is shown by many 
facts. The Indians, known to us, could give no satisfactory 
account of when, how, or by whom they were erected ; or for 
what purpose, except for defence. While the trees of the sur- 
rounding forests were chiefly oak, the growths upon, and within 
the lines of, the old forts, were generally of large black walnut. 



1 Called also the Iroquois. They ■were a Confederacy of the Mohawks, Oneidas, 
Onondagoes, Cayugas, Senecas and Tuscaroras. The Delawares and Shawnese were in 
league with them, but rather as conquered dependents. 
9 



18 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. I. 

wild cherry, and sometimes locust. We have examined some 
which indicated an age of from three to five hundred years, and 
they evidently of a second or third generation, as they were 
standing amid the decayed remains of their ancestors. How they 
got there, whether hy transplanting, hy deposits of floods, or of 
birds, or otherwise, is a speculation into which we will not go. 

These embankments may have been originally composed of 
wood, as their debris is generally a vegetable mould. No stone 
were used in their construction ; and among their ruins are always 
found some remains of old pottery, composed of clay, mixed with 
crushed muscle shells, even when far oif from a river. This compo- 
site was not burnt, but only baked in the sunshine. These vessels 
were generally circular ; and, judging from those we have seen, 
they were made to hold from one to three quarts. 

These old forts were of various /orws, square, oblong, triangular, 
circular and semi-circular. Their superficial areas range from 
one-fourth of an acre to ten acres. 

Their sites were generally well chosen, in reference to defence 
and observation. And what is a very singular fact, they were 
very often, generally in Fayette county, located on the highest 
and richest hills, and at a distance from any spring or stream of 
water. In a few instances this was otherwise, water being enclosed 
or contiguous, as they are generally in Ohio, and other more 
western parts of the Mississippi valley. 

Having seen and examined many of these "old forts " in Fayette, 
and also those at Marietta, Newark, and elsewhere, in Ohio, we 
believe they are all the work of the same race of people ; as are 
also the famous Grave Creek Mounds near Elizabethtown, Virginia; 
and if this belief be correct, then the conclusion follows irre- 
sistibly, that that race of people was much superior, and 
existed long anterior to the modern Indian. But who they were, 
and what became of them, must perhaps forever be unknown. 

We will briefly indicate the localities of some of these "old forts" 
in Fayette county. To enumerate all, or, to describe them sepa- 
rately, would weary the reader and waste our space. The curious 
in such matters may yet trace their remains. 

A very noted one, and of most commanding location, was at 
Brownsville, on the site of "Fort Burd," but covering a much 
larger area. Even after Col. Burd built his fort there, in 1759, it 
retained the names of iJAc " Old Fort," — Hedstone Old Fort, or, Fort 
Redstone. 

There was one on laud formerly of William Goe, near the 



OH. I.] ANTIQUITIES. 19 

Monongahela Eiver, and just above the mouth of Little Redstone ; 
where afterward was a Settler's Fort, called Cassel's or Castle Fort. 
And an old map which we have seen has another of these old forts 
noted at the mouth of Speers' run, where Bellevernon now is. 

Two or three are found on a high ridge southwardly of Perry- 
opohs, on the State road, and on land late of John F. Martin. 

Another noted one is on the western bank of the Youghiogheny 
river, nearlj' opposite the Broad ford, on land lately held by James 
Collins. 

There are several on the high ridge of land, leading from the 
Collin's fort above referred to, southwestwardly toward Plumpsock, 
on lands of James Paull, John M. Austin, John Bute and others; 
a remarkable one being on land lately owned by James Gilchrist 
and the Byers; where some very large human bones have been 
found. 

There is one on the north side of Mountz's creek, above Irish- 
man's run. 

A very large one, containing six or eight acres, is on the summit 
of Laurel Hill, where the Mud pike crosses it; covered with a large 
growth of black walnut. 

One specially noted, as containing a great quantity of broken 
shells and potter}'', existed on the high laud between Laurel run and 
the Yough river, on a tract formerly owned by Judge Young. 

There are yet distinct traces of one on land of Gen. Henry W. 
Beeson, formerly Col. M' Clean, about two miles east of Union- 
town. 

There was one north-east of Kew Geneva, at the locality known 
as the "Flint Hill," on land now of John Franks. 

About two miles north-east of New Geneva, on the road to 
Uniontown, and on land late of William Morris, now Nicholas B. 
Johnson, was one celebrated for its great abundance of ,musc]c 
shells. 

On the high ridge southwardly of the head waters of Middle 
run, several existed; of which may be named — one on the 
Bixler land — one on the high knob eastwardly of Clark Bread- 
ing's- — one on the Alexander Wilson tract — and one on the land of 
Dennis Riley, deceased, formerly Andrew C. Johnson. 

These comprise the most prominent of the "Old Forts," in 
Fayette. 

Of their cognates, JKounds, erected as monuments of conquest, 
or, like the Pyramids of Egypt, as the tombs of kings, we have 



20 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. I. 

none. Those that we have seen were of diminutive size, and may 
have been thrown up to commemorate some minor events, or to 
cover the remains of a warrior. 

Our territory, having been an Indian hunting ground, had within 
it but few Indian towns or villages, and these of no great magnitude 
or celebrity. There was one on the farm of James Ewing, near the 
southern corner of Redstone, and the line between German and 
Luzerne townships, close to a line limestone spring. Near it, on 
a ridge, were many Indian graves. Another was near where 
Abram Brown lived, about four miles west of Uniontown. There 
was also one on land of John M. Austin, Esq., formerly Samuel 
Stevens, near ' Sock. The only one we know of north of the 
Yough, was on the Strickler land, eastward of the Broad ford. 

Piles of stones, called Indian graves, were numerous in many 
places in Fayette, generally near the sites of Indian villages. They 
were generally on stony ridges, often twenty or thirty of them in a 
row. In many of them have been found human bones indicating 
a stature of from six to seven feet. They also contained arrow 
heads, spear points and hatchets, of stone and flint, nicely and 
regularly shaped — but how done, is the wonder. On a commanding 
eminence, overlooking the Yough river, upon land now of Col. 
A, M. Hill, formerly Wm. Dickerson, there are great numbers 
of these Indian graves ; among which, underneath a large stone, 
Mr. John Cottom, a few years ago found a very curious chain, con- 
sisting of a central ring, and five chains of about two feet in length, 
each branching off from it, having at their end, clamps, somewhat 
after the manner of hand-cufl's, largo enough to enclose a man's 
neck — indicating that its use was to confine prisoners — perhaps to 
fasten them to the burning stake. The chains were of an antique 
character, but well made, and seemed to have gone through fire. 

There are many other localities within our county limits, which 
maybe justly ranked as antiquities; but we reserve them to be 
interspersed in our subsequent sketches of events, and localities of 
distinct classes, with which they are intimately connected. They 
will lose none of their interest by their associations. 



CHAPTER II. 

settlers' forts. 

Fayette territory exempt from Indian cruelties — Description of Settlers' Forts ; their 
names and localities — An all-smoke incident. 

We might refer these to our sketch of " Early Settlements ;" but, 
as localities, we prefer introducing them immediately after the old 
forts, with which they are often confounded. 

For reasons which will be unfolded in the sequel, the territory 
of Fayette County was, after the end of the old French war, in 
17(33, and during all the period of its early settlement, remarkably 
exempt from those terrific incursions of the savages which made 
forting so common and necessary in the surrounding country. 
Hence we had but few Settlers' Forts, and those few of but little note. 

These forts were erected by the associated effort of settlers in 
particular neighborhoods, upon the land of some one, whose name 
was thereupon given to the fort, as Ashcraffs, Morris', &c. They 
consisted of a greater or less space of land, enclosed on all sides by 
high log parapets, or stockades, and cabins adapted to the abode of 
families. The only external openings were a large puncheon gate 
and small port-holes among the logs, through which the unerring 
rifle of the settler could be pointed against the assailants. Some- 
times, as at Lindley's, and many of the other forts in the adjacent 
country west of the Monongahela, additional cabins were erected 
outside the fort, for temporary abode in times of danger, from 
which the sojourners could, in case of attack, retreat within the 
fort. All these erections were of rough logs, covered with clap- 
boards and weight poles, the roofs sloping inwards. A regular-built 
fort, of the first class, had, at its angles, block-houses, and some- 
times a ditch protected a vulnerable part. These block-houses 
projected a little past the line of the cabins, and the upper half 
was made to extend some two feet further, like the over-jut of a 
barn, so as to leave an overhanging space, secured against entrance 
by heavy log floors, with small port holes for repelling close attacks, 
or attempts to dig down, or fire the forts. These rude defences 
were very secure, were seldom attacked, and seldom, if ever, cap- 



i 

22 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. II. 

tured. They were always located upon open, commanding emi- 
nences, sufficiently remote from coverts and wooded heights to 
prevent surprise. 

The sites of the "old forts" already described were sometimes 
chosen for settlers' forts. This was the case with the site on the 
Goe land, just above the mouth of Little Redstone, where, as 
already stated, was a settler's fort, called Cassel's, or Castle Fort. 
How far Redstone Old Fort was so used cannot certainly be known, 
as, while it existed as a place of defence, after settlements began, 
it was a kind of government fort, for the storage of ammunition 
and supplies, guarded by soldiers. Its proper name, after 1759, 
though seldom given to it, was Fort Burd. And there is evidence 
that, besides its governmental purposes, it was often resorted to by 
the early settlers, with their families, for protection, though for 
that object it was less adapted than many of the private forts — a 
few of which, within our county limits, we will now notice. 

One of the earliest erected forts of this kind was by John 
Minter, the Stevenson's, Crawford's and others, on land of the 
former, since Blackiston, now Ebenezer Moore, about a mile and 
a half westwardly of Pennsville. 

There was one on the old Thomas Gaddis farm, where Bazil 
Brownfield now lives, about two miles south of Uniontown; but 
what was its name we cannot certainly learn, or by whom or when 
erected, — probably, however, by Col. Gaddis, as he was an early 
settler, and a man of large public spirit. 

Another, called Pearses Fort, was on the Catawba Indian trail, 
about four miles north-east of Uniontown, near the residences of 
William and John Jones. Some old Lombardy poplars, recently 
fallen, denoted its site. 

About one mile north-west of Merrittstown there was one, on 
land now of John Craft. Its name is forgotten, 

Swearingen's Fort was in Springhill township, near the cross-road 
from Cheat river towards Brownsville. It derived its name from 
John Swearingen, who owned the land on which it stood, or from 
his son. Van Swearingen, afterward Sheriff of Washington County, 
a Captain in the Revolution and in the frontier wars, and whose 
nephew of the same name fell at St. Clair's defeat. 

One of considerable capacity, called Lucas' Fo7% was on the 
old Richard Brown farm, now Fordyce, near the frame meeting- 
house in Nicholson township. 

M Coy's Fort, on land of James M'Coy, stood where now stands 
the barn of the late Eli Baily, in South Union township. 



CH. II.] settlers' forts. 23 

Morns' Fort, which was one of the first grade, was much resorted 
to by the early settlers on the upper Monongahela and Cheat, and 
from Ten Mile. It stood on Sandy Creek, just beyond the Virginia 
line, outside our County limits. It was to this fort that the family 
of the father of the late Dr. Joseph Doddridge resorted, in 1774, as 
mentioned in his Notes. The late Col. Andrew Moore, who 
resided long near its site, said that he had frequently seen the 
ruins of the fort and its cabins, which may yet be traced. 

Ashcraft's Fort stood on land of the late Jesse Evans, Esq., where 
Phineas Sturgis lived, in Georges township. Tradition tells of a 
great alarm and resort to this fort, on one occasion, caused thus : 
On land lately owned by Robert Britt, in that vicinity, there is a 
very high knob called Prospect Mill, or Point Look- Out. To this 
eminence the early settlers were wont, in times of danger, daily to 
resort, to reconnoitre the country, sometimes climbing trees, to see 
whether any Indians had crossed the borders, of which they judged 
by the smoke of their camps. This hill commanded a view from 
the mountains to the Monongahela, and from Cheat hills far to the 
northward. On the occasion referred to, the scouts reported that 
Indians had crossed the Monongahela, judging from some smoke 
" which so gracefully curled." The alarm was given. The settlers 
flocked to Ashcraft's Fort, with wives and children , guns and pro- 
visions, and prepared to meet the foe — when lo ! much to the 
vexation of some and the joy of others, the alarm soon proved to 
be "all smoke." 



CHAPTER III. 

INDIAN TRAILS, TRADERS' PATHS, ARMY ROADS, &C. 

Indians had roads — Their night compasses — Catawba or Cherokee trail — Nemacolin's — 
Dunlap's path — Burd's road to Redstone — Fort Burd — Cresap — Month of Redstone — 
Turkey-foot roads — James Smith — Bullock pens — M'Culloch's path — M'Culloch 
caught — Sandy Creek road — Froman's road — Old County roads — Pack-horse business 
and travel — Prices. 

At the risk of some infractions of chronological order, before we 
go into the eventful portion of these sketches, we prefer now to 
trace these old highways ; and, to avoid repetitions, we must occa- 
sionally encroach upon subsequent narratives. 

An erroneous impression obtains among many of the present 
day, that the Indian, in traversing the interminable forests which 
once covered our towns and fields, roamed at random, like a 
modern afternoon hunter, by no fixed paths, or that he was guided, 
in his long journeys, solely by the sun, moon and stars, or by the 
courses of streams and mountains. And true it is that these 
untutored sons of the woods were considerable astronomers and 
geographers, and relied much upon these unerring guide-marks of 
nature. Even in the most starless night they could determine 
their course by feeling the bark of the oak-trees, which is always 
smoothest on the south side and roughest on the north. But still 
they had their trails or paths, as distinctly marked as are our 
County and State roads, and often better located. The white 
traders adopted them, and often stole their names, to be in turn 
surrendered to the leader of some Anglo-Saxon army, and finally 
obliterated by some costly highway of travel and commerce. 
They are now almost wholly effaced and forgotten. Hundreds 
travel along, and plough across them, unconscious that they are in 
the footsteps of the red men, as they were wont to hasten, in single 
file, to the lick, after the deer and buffalo, or to the wigwams of 
their enemy, in quest of scalps. 

The most prominent, and perhaps the most ancient of these old 
pathways across our county, was the old Catawba or Cherokee 
Trail, leading from the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, &c., through 
Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, on to "Western New York 



CH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, TRADERS' PATHS, &C. 26 

and Canada. We will trace it within our limits as well as we can. 
After crossing and uniting with numerous other trails, the princi- 
pal one entered Fayette territory, at the State line, at the mouth of 
Grassy run. A tributary trail, called the Warrior Branch, coming 
from Tennessee, through Kentucky and Southern Ohio, came up 
Fish creek and down Dunkard, crossing Cheat river at M'Far- 
land's. It run out a junction with the chief trail, intersecting it in 
William Gan's sugar camp, but it kept on by Crow's mill, James 
Robinson's, and the old gun factory,^ and thence towards the 
mouth of Redstone, intersecting the old Redstone trail from the 
top of Laurel Hill, afterward Burd's road, near Jackson's, or Grace 
Church, on the I^ational road. The main Catawba trail pursued 
"the even tenor of its way," regardless of minor points, which, 
like a modern grand rail road, it served by branches and turn-outs. 
After receiving the Warrior Branch junction, it kept on through 
land late of Charles Griffin, by Long's Mill, Ashcraft's Fort, Philip 
Rogers' (now Alfred Stewart's), the Diamond Spring, (now William 
James'); thence nearly on the route of the present Morgantown 
road, until it came to the Misses Hadden's ; thence across Hellen's 
fields, passing near the Rev. William Brownfield's mansion, and 
about five rods west of the old Henry Beeson brick house ; 
thence through IJniontown, over the old Bank house lot, crossing 
the creek where the bridge now is, back of the Sheriff's house; 
thence along the northern side of the public grave-yard on 
the hill, through the eastern edge of John Gallagher's land, about 
six rods south of John F. Foster's (formerly Samuel Clarke's) 
house, it crossed Shute's run where the fording now is, between 
the two meadows, keeping the high land through Col. Evans' 
plantation, and passed between William and John Jones' to the 
site of Pearse's Fort; thence by the Murphy school-house, and 
bearing about thirty rods westward of the Mount Braddock man- 
sion, it passed a few rods to the east of the old Conrad Strickler 
house, where it is still visible. Keeping on through land formerly 
of John Hamilton, (now Freeman,) it crossed the old Connellsville 
road immediately on the summit of the Limestone hill, a few rods 
west of the old Strickler distillery; thence through the old Law- 
rence Harrison land (James Blackiston's) to Robinson's falls of 
Mill run, and thence down it to the Yough river, crossing it just 
below the run's mouth, where Braddock's army crossed, at Stewart's 



^ See memoir oi Albert Gallatin, in "Early Settlers" — postea, Chap. VII. 



26 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

crossings. The trail thence kept through the Narrows, by Rist's, 
near the Baptist meeting-house, beyond Pennsville, passing by the 
old Saltwell on Green Lick run, to the mouth of Bushy run, at 
Tinsman's or Welshonse's mill. Thence it bore across Westmore- 
land county, up the Allegheny, to the heads of the Susquehanna, 
and into Western 'New York, then the empire of the Iroquois. 
A branch left the main trail at Robinson's mill, on Mill or Opossum 
run, which crossed the Yough at the Broad ford, bearing down 
across Jacob's creek, Sewickley and Turtle creeks, to the forks of 
the Ohio, at Pittsburgh, by the highland route. This branch, and 
the northern part within our county, of the main route, will be 
ibund to possess much interest in connection with Braddock's line 
of march to his disastrous destiny. 

This Cherokee or Caiaioba Indian trail, including its Warrior 
branch, is the only one of note which traversed our county north- 
ward and southward. Generally, they passed eastward and west- 
ward, from the river, to and across the mountains. To trace all 
these would be uninteresting. We will therefore confine our 
sketchings to those which have had their importance enhanced by 
having been adopted as traders'" paths, and as army or emigrants' roads. 

Decidedly the most prominent of all these is Nem.acoUn's trail, 
afterwards adopted and improved by Washington, and Braddock, 
the latter of whom, by a not unusual freak of fame, has given to 
the road its name, while its shrewd old Indian engineer, like him 
who traced for ISTapoleon the great road across the Simplon, has 
been buried in forgetfulness. 

Nemacolin's path led from the mouth of Wills' creek (Cumber- 
land, Md.) to the "forks of the Ohio" (Pittsburgh). It doubtless 
existed as a purely Indian trail before Kemacolin's time. For 
when the Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania traders with the 
Indians on the Ohio, began their operations, perhaps as early as 
1740,- they procured Indians to show them the best and easiest 
route, and this was the one they adopted. So says Washington. 
And when the " Ohio Company," hereafter to be noticed, was 
formed, in 1748, and preparing to go into the Ohio Indian trade 
on a large scale, they procured Col. Thomas Cresap, of Old Town, 
Md., to engage some trusty Indians to mark and clear the path- 
way. For this purpose he engaged Nemacolin, a well known Dela- 
ware Indian, who resided at the mouth of Dunlap's creek, which, 



" There is some evidence that Indian traders, both English and French, were in this? 
country much earlier. 



CH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, TRADERS' PATHS, &C. 27 

in early times, was called Nemacolin's creek.^ The commissioner 
and engineer, with the aid of other Indians, executed the work, in 
1750, by blazing the trees, and cutting away and removing the 
bushes and fallen timber, so as to make it a good pack-horse 
path. Washington says that " the Ohio Company, in 1753, at a 
'Considerable expense, opened the road. In 1754, the troops whom I 
had the honor to command, greatly repaired it, as far as Gisfs plan- 
tation ; and, in 1755, it was loidenedand completed by Gen. Braddock 
to within six miles of Fort Du Quesne." * This is a brief history of 
the celebrated "Braddock's road." We will hereafter take the 
reader over it more leisurely. It was, until near its fatal termina- 
tion, identical with Nemacolin's path, which, also, from Gist's 
northward, with a few variations, was identical with the old 
Catawba trail, or -with its westward branch to the head of the Ohio. 
And we will see what Braddock lost by not following it implicitly 
to the end. 

Dunlap's path, or road, was a very early one. It came from 
Winchester, by way of Wills' creek, to the mouth of Dunlap's 
creek. Dunlap was a trader, and, as Braddock did with the road, 
so he succeeded in wresting from ]^emacolin the name of the creek, 
which now bears his name. From Wills' creek to the top of 
Laurel hill, near the Great Kock, the route of Dunlap's road was 
identical with that of Nemacolin or Braddock.^ From that point 
Nemacolin's path bore north-east, along the crest of the moun- 
tain ; while Dunlap's bore westwardly, descending the mountain a 
little south of the present ISTational road, taking to Lick run about 
a mile from the foot of the hill. Thence it passed through the 
southern part of Monroe, by Isaac Brownfield's, past James 
McCoy's fort, near Samuel Hatfield's brick barn, crossing the 
Cherokee trail some eight rods north of Rev. W. Brownfield's 
house ; thence to Coal lick or Jacob's run, on land now of N. 



* In Gen. Richard Butlei-'s journal of his expedition down the Ohio, in 1785, in com- 
pany with Colonel, afterwards President Monroe, to treat with the Miami Indians, he 
speaks of an island called Nemacolin's, between the mouths of the Little Kenahwa and 
Hocking, doubtless a subsequent abode of the same Indian. 

* II. Sparks' Washington, 302, in an eloquent letter to Col. Bouquet, urging this 
route to be taken by Gen. Forbes, in 1758. 

5 Col. Burd, in the .journal of his expedition to Redstone, in 1759, says: "At the 
foot of the hill [meaning the eastern base of Laurel hill] we found the path that went 
to Dunlap's ^lace, that Col. Shippen and Capt. Gordon traveled last winter ; and about 
a quarter of a mile from this we saw the Big rock, so called." Dunlap's place, we 
believe, was where Wm. Stone now resides, on the Burnt Cabin fork of Dunlap's creek. 



28 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

Brownfield (where a braucli led ofi" to Provance's bottom, or mouth 
of Big Whitely) ; thence passing by David Jennings', on Jennings' 
run, near Samuel Harris', and through the old John Woods' land, 
towards Jackson's or Grace churcli, near to which, in the head of 
Vail's sugar camp hollow, it united with the Redstone trail, or 
Burd's road, presently to be sketched. And were it not that a 
Virginia statute, hereafter to be cited, calls for this road as starting 
at Medstone Old Fori, we would make its western terminus at Craw- 
ford's ferry, to which it is certain a branch led. Perhaps the 
main path originally went from the fort up the river to the ferry 
or ford there, to connect with the road to Catfish's camp, ("Wash- 
ington, Pa.) which took to the river there to avoid the steep and 
rugged bluff opposite Brownsville. 

When Virginia took it into her head to claim and exercise juris- 
diction over this region of country,^ she, by a statute passed in 
October, 1776, gave a temporary legal existence to Dunlap's road, 
by making it part of the dividing line between the counties of Mon- 
ongalia and Yohogania. It is now as completely sunk in oblivion 
as most of her politicians wish the line of 36° 30' to become. 

The "road to Redstone," or Burd's road, as it was afterwards 
called, was originally an Indian trail, from the mouth of Redstone 
to the summit of Laurel hill, near the Great Rock and Washing- 
ton's spring — the great focus of old roads — where it united with 
Dunlap's road and others. From Gist's to the Rock it seems to 
have been identical with JS'emacolin's or Braddoek's road. It was 
a much traveled path by the Indians, by early traders and adven- 
turers, and by the French during the early part of the war of 
1754-63. Captain Trent passed over it in February, 1754, on his 
way with men and tools and stores, to build a fort for the Ohio 
Company at the forks of the Ohio, and when he built the Hangard 
at the mouth of Redstone. By this path, also, came the French 
and Indians, under M. de Villiers, who attacked Col. Washington 
at Fort Necessity, and it was much used by them in their annoying 
excursions, during Braddoek's and Dunbar's marches, in connection 
with canoe navigation up and down the Monongahela, of all which 
we will read further in subsequent sketches.'' 

We will also see hereafter,' that when Col. Washington, in 
June, 1754, found himself not strong enough to advance to Fort 



^ See postea — sketch of ^^ Boundary Controversy, <j-c." — Chap. IX. 
' See the next succeeding sketches — " French War — Washington and Braddoek's Cam- 
paigns,'' — Chaps. IV. and V. 



CH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, ARMY ROADS, <tC. 29 

Dm Quesne, he determined to proceed by this path to the mouth ot 
Redstone, and there erect a fort, and wait for reinforcements. 
Having come on to Gist's, (Mount Braddock), he sent on a party, 
under Captain Lewis, to open a road to Redstone ; that is, to widen 
and improve the Indian trail, so as to fit it for passing wagons, &c. 
This party had advanced with the work "about eight miles,'" 
when, alarmed at the approach of the enemy, they retreated, or 
were called back by Washington, to the incipient entrenchments 
at Gist's. The point at which the road was then stopped, was, we 
believe, at or near where it crosses Jennings' run, between John 
Gaddis' and B. Courtney's. It would seem that very little work 
was done on it ; for, live years afterwards, Col. Burd had great 
difiiculty to trace it. 

In the latter part of the summer of 1759, Col. James Burd was 
sent out with two hundred men, by order of Col. Bouquet, then 
commanding the king's troops at Carlisle, to open and complete 
this road to the Monongahela river, at or near the mouth of Red- 
stone, and there erect a fort. The English, under Gen. Stanwix. 
were, about the same time, commencing to build Fori Pitt, at the 
head of the Ohio, in lieu of Fort Du Quesne, from which the French 
had been driven by Gen. Forbes, and which they had burnt, the 
previous year. The great object of Col. Burd's expedition was to 
facilitate communications with this important fort from Maryland 
and Virginia, by using the river.^ Col. Burd seems to have had 
no other authority for his road and fort than Col. Bouquet's order;;. 
If he had, it was not from Pennsylvania, but from Virginia or the 
King, who doubtless provided the ways and means the more cheer- 
fully, as the French were now effectually, and, as it turned out. 
permanently routed from this region of country. The Colon e! 
came out by Braddock's road, from Fort Cumberland. Col. Thos. 
Cresap, the commissioner of Kemacolin's road, was with him ; and 
the Rev. Francis Allison was his chaplain, preaching every Sab- 
bath. 

On the 12th of September, being encamped at Gisfsj^lace, he 
sent out parties to trace the route. His journal now reads thus : 
" At noon (13th) began to cut the road to Redstone, along some 
old blazes, which we take to be Col. Washington's. Began a 
quarter of a mile from camp, the course N. N". W. The course of 



^ Thus early was it seen that the route bet-ween Cumberland and Brownsville was 
the shortest and easiest land transit between the eastern and western waters. Alas .' 
how rail roads have paled its glory. 



30 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

Gen. Braddock's road N. IST. E., and turns much to the eastward. 
Marked two trees at the place of beginning, thus : ' The road to 
Redstone, Coh J. Burd, 1759— The road to Pittsburgh, 1759.' " 
These trees stood near the beginning of Jacob Murphey's avenue, 
on the west of the Connellsville road. The road followed the 
Indian trail, passing through the Rankin and Henshaw lands; 
thence nearly parallel with Butes' run, through the Carter lands, 
crossing the run and the creek near the run's mouth, and near 
Lucky's, now Vance's mill, into Jacob Gaddis' land. It crossed 
Jennings' run near John Gaddis', or B. Courtney's; thence, in a 
pretty direct line, on through the old Hugh Crawford and Adams 
tracts, now Jacob B. Graham, "Wm. TIattield and others, until it 
came to a point a little north-west of where the Johnson or Ilat- 
iield stone tavern house stands. Here the old trail bore too much 
to the right, going through the old Grable place, the old Fulton 
place, (now A¥illiam Colvin's), by the old Colvin house, the school- 
house, Ayres Linn's and Isaac Linn's, to the mouth of Redstone. 
But Col. Burd left this trail at the point above indicated, and took 
along the high ridges, through the Colley and Hastings lands, 
near Brashears' and Eli Cope's, until he reached the site of his 
fort, "a hill in the fork of the river Monongahela and ISTemo-cal- 
ing's Creek ;" being on the south side of Front street, opposite 
where the fort-like mansion of N. B. Bowman, Esq., now stands. 
When completed, the road was found to be sixteen miles one 
quarter and sixteen perches, from the beginning, near Gist's, to 
the centre of the fort. 

Col. Burd mentions a run which he calls " Coal Run," from being 
"entirely paved on the bottom with fine stone coal," which he 
crossed and where he encamped. By his journal he makes it only 
two and a half miles from the river. Were it not for this we 
would have said it was Jennings' Run. But it must have been 
the run which passes down by D. C. Colvin's to the paper milL 

Fort Burd was erected upon the site of "Redstone Old Fort; " 
but in common, or even official designation, could never supplant 
it, in its name. According to the science of backwoods fortifica- 
tion in those days, it was a regularly constructed work of defence, 
with bastions, ditch and draw-bridge; built, however, wholly of 
earth and wood. The bastions and central "house," were of 
timbers laid horizontally; the "curtains" were of logs set in the 
<rround vertically, like posts, in close contact — called a stockade, 
or palisades. 

In XII Pennsylvania Archives, 347, we find the following plan 



OH. III.] 



INDIAN TRAILS, FORT BURD, &C. 



31 



and dimensions of the fort, as found among the papers of Joseph 
Shippen, an Engineer, &c., who accompanied Colonel Burd : " The 
curtain, 97| feet ; the flanks, 16 feet ; the faces of the bastions, 30 
feet. A ditch, between the bastions 24 feet wide, and opposite the 
faces, 12 feet. The log-house for a magazine, and to contain the 
women and children, 39 feet square. A gate 6 feet wide and 8 
feet high ; and a draw-bridge — feet wide." 

From this description, we have constructed the following 
diagram : 

SECTION A_B 




The gallant colonel had rather a hard time of it, in constructing 
his fort. "I have," sajs he, "kept the people constantly employed 
on the works since m j arrival ; although we have been for eight 
days past upon the small allowance of one pound of beef and half 
a pound of flour, per man, a day ; and this day we begin upon one 
pound of beef, not having an ounce of flour left, and only three 
bullocks. I am therefore obliged to give over working until I 



32 THE MONONGAHBLA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

receive some supplies." He, however, soon got some supplies, and 
held on. The following is from his journal; "October 28. — 
Sunday. — Continue on the works ; had sermon in the fort." The 
last entry is — "November 4. — Sunday. — Snowed to-day — no work. 
Sermon in the fort. Dr. Allison sets out for Philadelphia." 

The fort was not designed to be a place of great strength or 
danger. Col. Burd garrisoned it with one officer and twenty-five 
men. How long the garrison held it is unknown. But it seems 
to have been under some kind of military possession in 1774, 
during " Dunmore's War;" and during the Revolution and the 
cotemporary Indian troubles, it was used as a store house and a 
rallying point for defence, supply and observation, by the early 
settlers and adventurers. It was never rendered famous by a seige 
or a sally. We know that the late Col. James Paull served a 
month's duty in a drafted militia company, in guarding continental 
stores here, in 1778. It is said that in and prior to 1774, Capt. 
Michael Cresap,^ (who has unjustly acquired an odious fame by 
being charged with the murder of Logan's family,) made this fort 
the centre of operations for a long period. He was a man of great 
daring and influence on the frontier. He early acquired a kind of 
Virginia right to the land around the fort, which he improved, 
erecting upon it a hewed log, shingle-roofed house — the first of 
that grade in the settlement. He held his title for many years, 
and sold out to John M'Cullough, or to Thomas, or Bazil Brown, 
to whom a Patent issued from Pennsylvania, in 1785. 

The opening of the "road to Pedstone," being an extension of 
Braddock's road to the nearest navigable water of the West ; and 
the subsequent establishment of two other roads, hereafter noticed — 
the Pennsylvania road from Bedford, by way of Berlin, Connells- 
ville, Uniontown, &c., and the combination of Braddock's and 



9 This Captain Michael Cresap was the son of Col. Thomas Cresap, of Old Town, 
Maryland, and father-in-law of the renowned Luther Martin of that State. He bore a 
very conspicuous part in the Indian troubles about Wheeling, Pittsburgh, &c., in 1774. 
In June, 1775, he led a company of riflemen from Maryland to Cambridge, Mass., to 
join Gen. Washington's army. He soon took sick, and died on his way home, at New 
York, in October, 1775. His son, Michael, and John J. Jacob, (who married his widow,) 
of Allegheny Co., Md., were his executors, and as such, had some moneys to collect by 
suit in this county. His fame has been successfully vindicated from the murder of 
Logan's relatives, by his illustrious kinsmen, Martin and Jacob, who have proved most 
conclusively, not only that he did not do the deed, but that the name of Cresap was not 
in Logan's celebrated speech, as it was originally written, and that Logan never wrote 
or spoke it. See the evidence, &c , in II. Craig's Olden Time, 44, 49, &c. 



OH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, ARMY ROADS, AC. 33 

Dunlap's roads, called the Virginia road — soon caused the "mouth 
of Redstone," or, rather, the month of Dunlap's creek, to become a 
very notable place. It was the place of general embarkation by 
traders and emigrants to Kentucky and Ohio, or, as it was termed, 
"going down the river." It became the great place for shipping 
mill stones, made on Laurel Hill, to Kentucky and the West. " The 
writer has seen as many as thirty pairs lying at the mouth of 
Dunlap's creek at a time, from 1796 to 1808, waiting for boats and 
water to float oft' to Limestone. Kentucky and Southern Ohio 
were peopled from this point and the Lower Yough. John Moore, 
a very early settler on the farm now the residence of Johnson 
Yankirk, used to relate, that in the long cold winter of 1780 — a 
proto-type of those of 1856-57 — the snow being three or four 
feet deep and crusted, he saw the road from Sandy Hollow (Bru- 
baker's,) to the verge of Brownsville, where "William Hogg lived, 
lined on both sides with wagons and families, camped out, waiting 
the loosing of the icy bands from the waters, and the preparation 
of boats to embark for the West — the men dragging in old logs 
and stumps for fuel, to save their wives and children from freezing." 
Simultaneous with Braddock's march across the mountains, in 
June, 1755, an army road was being made by the colony of Penn- 
sylvania, under the superintendence of Col. James Burd and 
others, from Shippensburg, by Raystdwn (Bedford,) to the Turkey 
Foot; thence to intersect Braddock's road at some convenient 
point, probably the Great Crossings (Somerfield.) Its purpose was 
to transport supplies to Braddock's army. It was opened, at great 
cost and labor, as far as the top of Allegheny mountain, within 
about eighteen miles .of Turkey Foot; when the battle. of Turtle 
creek having occurred, the laborers were alarmed and driven m^H 
by the French and Indians to Fort Cumberland. Thereupon the 
road was forsaken, until some years after Forbes captured Fort 
Du Quesne, when its opening was resumed and completed. It was 
called the Turkey Foot or Smith's road^° It crossed the three rivers 
at Turkey Foot, and passed a little south of Sugar Loaf mountain by 



'* The name of Smith Avas given to the road, because while it was being made, a lad of 
about si:jteen, James Smith, was captured by the Indians and carried to Fort Du Quesne, 
where he was on the eventful 9th of July, 1755, and witnessed the departure and return 
of the conquerors of Braddock, and the horrid orgies and tortures of prisoners which 
occurred that night. Mr. Smith afterwards became famous in the frontier and Revolu- 
tionary wars, in Westmoreland and Bedford counties, and held civil offices of honor. Ho 
subsequently removed to Kentucky, where he became a colonel and a member of the 
Legislature. 

3 



34 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

Dunbar's Camp to Unioiitown. It crossed Redstoue where the 
N^ational road now crosses it, and passing just north of the Metho- 
dist grave-yard, it fell into the route of the turnpike again, near 
Jennings' run; thence by the old Brownsville road to its junction 
with Burd's road, near Jackson's church, from w^hich the two 
became identical. 

The "Turkey Foot settlement" is one of the oldest west of the 
mountains. Hence roads to and through it were established very 
early; and every such road came to be called a "Turkey Foot 
road." Indeed, most of the early roads took the names ol the 
localities to or through which they passed — as the Pennsylvania 
road, the Virginia road, 3Ioorfield road, Sandy Creek road, &c. 
There was, however, one Turkey Foot road which was an impor- 
tant one, though it is now mostly abandoned, and much of it over- 
grown with bushes, or fenced in. It was established as a nearer 
route to Fort Pitt from Cumberland, than Braddock's road. It left 
the last named road somewhere in Maryland, east of the Greart 
Crossings, and entered Fayette county, from Somerset, as it 
crossed the summit of Laurel Hill; thence, passing down Skinner's 
Mill run to near its entrance into Indian creek, crossing it a 
little above the junction, and the Mud Pike near where Spring- 
field now is, it passed by Cornelius Woodruff's old place, descen- 
ded the Chestnut ridge, and crossed Mountz's creek at Cathcart's, 
or Andrews' Mill, and crossed Jacob's creek about a mile below 
the old Chain Bridge, there leaving this county ; and soon coming 
into the route of Braddock, it passed through the Sewickley settle- 
ment, &c. to Fort Pitt. 

On this road, about the junction of Skinner's Mill run and 
Indian creek, were the well known "bullock pens." As early as 
1776, if not earlier. Gen. George Morgan, afterwards Indian 
Agent in the Pittsburgh region, came out by this road with a lot 
of cattle, either on private account, or for the garrison at Fort 
Pitt, and finding fine range and natural meadow here, he stopped, 
had a large body of laud, lying on both sides of the creek, enclosed 
with a rail fence, (some of which was visible within ten years past,) 
and kept the cattle there a long time. He afterwards had two 
warrants and surveys of the land in the names of George Morgan 
and John Morgan, w^hich tracts he sold to some Germans, and 
they have since been known as laud of Storman's heirs, and more 
recently of James Paull, Jr. 

M'CuUoch's Path was an Indian and Traders' trail from Win- 
chester and Moorfield, Va., westward. It came by way of Little 



CH. III.] INDIAN TRAILS, ARMY ROADS, AC. 35 

Yough, near the route of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, 
crossing the Big Yough near the same point where that rail road 
crosses it, passing through Herrington's and Hurley's Glades, and 
by the Crab Orchard. It entered Peuusylvania and Fayette 
county a little east of the summit of Laurel Hill, which it crossed 
at Wymp's Gap; thence passmg a little north of Morris' Cross 
roads, it crossed the Monongahela into Green county, between the 
mouth of Cheat and ISTeal's ferry. 

M'CuUoch was an Indian Trader. His "camp" was just across 
the State line on the Monongahela river. He was in the habit of 
supplying the Indians, even in times of war, with knives, 
hatchets, powder, &c. The settlers complained of this, and threat- 
ened him, but he would not desist. At length they determined to 
enforce their threats. Learning that he sometimes returned by 
Sandy Creek and Braddock's road, a number of the settlers from 
about the Great Crossings and Turkey Foot, disguised themselves, 
and went in pursuit. They caught him at Jesse Tomlinsou's, at 
the Little Crossings, or Castleman's river. They gave him to know 
that his contraband trade must cease. Mac resisted and threat- 
ened and entreated. Tomlinson, it is said, sought to protect him 
as his guest. But the men were in earnest. Tom Fossit was one 
of them. Tom caught and held him in his giant grasp, while 
others, as the term used was, "deviled him," until he promised 
never more to transgress. After despoiling him of his ill gotten 
peltry and other pelf, they let him go, and he never was seen again 
in this region of country. 

There were other old roads traversing the territory of Fayette, 
long before we had any County Courts, and consequently no 
record of them exists here, or in Bedford, or Westmoreland, 
except where they have been adopted in whole or in part us 
legalized highways. We will not attempt their enumeration, or 
location.^^ 



'* The very first petition for a road presented to the Court of Westmoreland, after its 
erection, was in April, 1773, by inhabitants of Springhill and west of the Monongahela 
river, setting forth their "difiBcult circumstance for want of a road leading into any 
public road where we can possibly pass with convenience," and therefore praying for 
" a public road to begin at or near the mouth of Fish Pot run, about five miles below 
the mouth of Ten Mile creek, on the west side of the Mouong.ihela river, (it being a 
convenient place for a ferry [Crawford's Ferry,] as also a good direction for a rend 
leading to the most western part of the setticment,) thence the nearest and best way 
to the Forks of Duulap's path, and Gen. Braddock's road on the top of Laurel Hill." 
Viewers appointed — .John Moore, Thomas Scott, Henry lieeson, Thomas Browufieid, 
James M'Cleau, and Philip Shutc. 



3G THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

There was, however, one called the Sandy Creek road, which was 
of considerable note. It came from the Ten Mile settlement, 
through G-reen county, crossing the river at Hyde's Ferry, or 
mouth of Big Whiteley, passing by the south side of Masontown, 
through Haydentown, or by David Johns' Alill, up Laurel Hill, 
through the Sandy Creek settlement to Daniel M'Peak's and into 
Virginia. It was by this road that the father and family of Dr. 
Joseph Doddridge, passed to Morris' Fort, in 1774, as related in 
his "Kotes." This was the second road viewed and laid out by 
order of the Court of Fayette county, after its erection in 1783 ; 
a road from Uniontown to the mouth of Grassy Run, on Cheat, 
being the first. '- 

Another of these old roads we may refer to. It was called 
Fromaii's road, which led from Grist's, past Perryopolis and Col. 
Cook's to Pittsburgh. ^^ It has been improperly called Washing- 



At the same Court a petition was presented for a road from Washington's Spring to 
Sewickley, but the route is not designated. 

At April Sessions, 1774, a petition was presented by inhabitants of Tyrone and 
Menallen, (see "outline of Civil History," &c. postea,) setting forth the "want of a 
road leading into Braddock's road, or any part of the mountain ; and further we would 
observe, that from the natural situation of the country, we who at present live on the 
loest side of the Monongahela river, are obliged freqiiently to carry our corn twenty 
miles to the mill of Henry Beeson, near Laurel Hill, and in all probability, at some 
seasons of the year, will ever have to do so ; and therefore praying for a road from 
near Redstone Old Fort to Henry Beeson's mill, and thence to intersect Braddock's road 
near the forks of Dunlap's road and said road on the top of Laurel Hill." Viewers 
appointed — Richard Waller, Andrew Linn, Jr., William Colvin, Thomas Crooks, Henry 
Hart, and Joseph Grayble. The road was reported and approved at January Sessions, 
1784. 

At January Sessions, 1783, a petition was presented for a road "from Beeson's Town, 
in the Forks of Youghiogheny to the Salt Works, and thence eastward to Bedford 
Town." The Salt Works referred to were those on Green Lick and Jacob's creek, in the 
vicinity of Tinsman's, or Welshonse's and Lobengier's Mills. 

At January Sessions, 1784, of Westmoreland county, a road from Beeson's Town to 
Col. Cook's was reported and approved. 

^^ Petitions for these roads Lad previously been acted upon in AVcstmoreland county, 
the latter one beginning at Stewart's Crossing. (Connellsville.) 

'^ A petition for this road was presented to the Westmoreland Court at January 
Sessions, 1774, describing it as to lead "from Thomas Gisfsto Paul Froman's Mill near 
the Monongahela, (on Spear's Run, near Bellevernon,) and thence to his other mill on 
Chartlers' creek," (a few miles west of Pittsburgh.) It seems that at that date a mill 
was a more important place than Pittsburgh. Froman's Mill, on Chartiers, was a prom- 
inent place in the boundary troubles of that year. This Paul Froman seems to have 
been a man of mills, for we find that Daniel M'Peak's or M'Peck's, named in the text, 
was, in 1783, on a road "from Froman's Mill." 



CH, 



III.] INDIAN TRAILS, ARMY ROADS, AC. 37 



ton's road. But he never passed over it, except in part, perhaps, 
when in 1770, and again in 1784, he went from Col. Crawford's, or 
Gist's, to look after his lands in the vicinity of Perryopolis. It 
was used to carry supplies to Fort Pitt, and as a nearer and safer 
route than Burd's or Braddock's roads. 

We will here close our tracings of these primitive highways, by 
a brief recurrence to their early uses by the old settlers and traders. 
Besides the ordinary uses for milling, visiting, church going, &c., 
their great use was for emigration and transportation of goods, 
even the most weighty and cumbrous, by pack-horses. To this end 
alone, were they fitted. Wone of the streams were bridged ; and 
a five degrees' grade was not thought of. Except as to the Army 
7'oads, they were all mere paths through the woods, and among 
the laurel and rocks of the mountains. The two great emigrant 
and pack-horse routes, up to 1800, were the Pennsylvania and the 
Virginia roads, heretofore noticed. " The writer has seen as many 
^as thirty pack-horses in a caravan, pass through Uniontowu in a 
day — an occurrence so frequent as not to attract unusual notice. 
They were as common as droves of cattle or horses now-a-days. 
They were freighted with salt, sugar kettles, bar iron, nail rods, 
dry goods, glass, kegs of rum, powder, lead, &c., &c. A good 
horse carried from two hundred to three hundred pounds, besides 
provisions and feed. These they would take up along the way, 
at places where they had dropped them in 'going down;' having 
no other heavy 'down loading' merely peltry, ginseng, feathers, 
&c. The provisions consisted generally, of poe7i, cheese and dried 
venison. A bear skin to each horse was an indispensable accom- 
paniment, for a bed to- the drivers, and to protect the cargo from 
rain. Each horse had his bell, silent by day, but let loose at night 
when browsing. Two men generally managed ten or twelve horses, 
one before and one behind each train, to guide them among the 
trees, and protect the loading from side contact. Strength was 
also needful to load and unload daily. Emigrants would have 
their little all swung across one, two, or more horses, according to 
their abundance, surmounted by their wives and children, or the 
old folk, with the little bag, or stocking of guineas, joes, or pista- 
reens snugly esconced in the salt or clothes bag — after the manner 
of Joseph's brethren on their trip to Egypt for corn." In 1784, the 
freight on goods from Philadelphia to Uniontown, was Five Dollars 
per one hundred pounds. In 1789, thirty shillings, {Four Dollars,) 
from Carlisle — the beginning of the pack-horse transportation. 
We have before us a copy of the "Pittsburgh Gazette," of May 



38 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. III. 

17, 1794, (Vol. VII. — measuring sixteen by twenty-two inches,) in 
which, among other antiques, is an advertisement offering $15 
per month for pack-horse drivers, to all who may apply. James 
L. Bowman, Esq., has stated that the first wagon load of goods 
brought over the mountains, by the Virginia or Braddock's 
road, was in 1789, by John Hayden, (of w^hom more hereafter,) 
from Ilagerstowu to Brownsville, for his father, the late Jacob 
Bowman, Esq. With four horses he brought over two thousand 
pounds, at $3 per hundred, making the trip in about a month. 

This state of things made goods — even the necessaries of life, 
very high. The best of alum salt rated here at from $4 to $5 per 
bushel, of ninety-six pounds; ground alum salt, at from $3 to 
$3.50; coffee, 33 cents per pound; sugar, 25 cents; Jamaica 
spirits, $2.33 per gallon. In 1784, wheat sold for 67 cents per 
bushel; corn, 22 cents; rye, 50 cents. But flour at iNTatchez — if 
you could get it there, was worth $25 per barrel ! A good two 
horse wagon and gears could be bought for two pack-horse loads 
of salt ; or, a good tract of land, of four hundred acres, for a rifle 
gun and a horn of powder ! 

Having opened the ivays, we are now prepared to introduce upon 
them actors and movements of a very different character from 
pack-horse drivers, and pack-horse loads of salt and emigrants. 
The war-whoop and the drum, are now, for a while, to precede 
the merry shout of the mover, and the glad greetings of the settler. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, AC. 

Origin of the War — First Bloodshed — Washington's Embassy, in 1753 — Gist — Ohio 
Company — Captain Trent — The Hangard — Ensign Ward — Colonel Washington at 
Great Meadows — at Gist's — his Forces — who were with him — Attacks Juraonville — 
Jumonville's Camp — The Half-King's Camp — Great Rock — De Villiers — Retreat to 
"Fort Necessity" — The Battle — Surrender — Retreat — Demolition — Garrison Drunk — 
Prayers — Fort Necessity described — Wants a Monument. 

The nations were at peace. France held Canada on the north, 
and ^ Louisiana on the south and west. The Mississippi and its 
tributaries nearly united these possessions, which Louis XIV. 
with much show of right, claimed to hold by virtue of discovery 
and settlement. The Appalachian mountains seemed a natural 
boundary to the English colonies. The purpose of France was to 
make them such, in fact and forever :— by establishing a chain of forts 
from Lake Erie down the most western branch of the Allegheny, 
(French creek,) and thence, by that river and the Ohio, to Louisi- 
ana; and by these, and by securing the friendship and fears of the 
Indian tribes, establish an impregnable dominion. The move- 
ments to these ends rekindled the smothered jealousy of England 
and her Colonies, and led to the long and disastrous war of 1754 — 
1763, as ruinous to the power of France in its results, as her con- 
duct in the beginning was plausible and bold. The territory which 
at first appeared to be the prize of the contest, was that drained by 
the head waters of the Ohio. Each party claimed it, upon varied 
pretexts, — discovery, treaties, &c., but neither had any solid basis of 
claim, — the Indian was the rightful owner. The destinies of civili- 
zation were against the further continuance of the red man's occu- 
pancy; and the struggle was as to who should guide those 
destinies — the Anglo Saxon or the Gaul — the Jesuit and Jan- 
senist, or the Puritan and Covenanter. 



1 Louisiana, as held by France, and ceded to the United States, in 1803, included all of 
the States and Territories now belonging to the United States west of the Mississippi, 
to the Rocky Mountains, embracing also that part of the State of Louisiana which is 
east of the Mississippi. 



40 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. 

It is not proposed here to write the history of this eventful war. 
But Fayette county was by it made historic, nay, classic ground. 
From behind its Laurel Hill the star of Washington's fame first 
beamed. The first English army sent into the strife, traversed its 
territory. The first blood shed in the conflict moistened the rock- 
bottomed soil of its mountains; germinating seeds from which 
sprang the revolt and independence of the old thirteen colonies, 
and the horrors and triumphs of the French Revolution : — thus 
bringing upon both parties the visitations of retributive justice, for 
the wrongs done to the Indian, and to each other, in the inceptive 
strife. The reader of these sketches will therefore not regret to 
find even here recorded such of the events of this war as occurred 
in Fayette county. 

The scene opens in November, 1753; when Major George 
Washington, then in his twenty-second year, crossed our moun- 
tains, by Il^emacolin's trail, from Wills' creek, (Cumberland) as a 
special envoy, commissioned by Gov. Dinwiddle, of Virginia, to 
the French posts, between the head of the Ohio and Lake Erie, to 
spy out the French force and designs, to inquire of them why 
they came there, and to warn them off. 

His party consisted of himself, John Davidson, an Indian inter- 
preter, Captain Jacob Van Braam, as French interpreter, — a per- 
sonage conspicuous the next year in the surrender of Fort 
Necessity, — Christopher Gist, as Guide, who in that year had 
settled at the place in Fayette, since known as Mt. Braddock, — 
Currau and M'Quire, Indian traders, and Stewart and Jenkins,^ — 
these four as "servitors." They left Wills' creek, November 
15th, with horses, tents and baggage ; and after seven days of toil 
over the mountains, amid snow and swollen streams, reached 
Frazier's trading post, at the mouth of Turtle creek; whence 
they proceeded, accompanied by some Indians, to the fulfillment 
of their mission. Washington, in his journal, says, they passed 
''Mr. Gist's new settlement," and that he, with Gist, returned by 
the same route. "We arrived," says he, "at Mr. Gist's,* at Monon- 
gahela, the 2d of January, (1754) where I bought a horse and saddle. 



* This Stewart is probably one of the family of that name who settled at, and gave 
name to "Stewart's Crossings." (Connellsville.) See Affidavit of William Stewart in 
note 21 to memoir of ike Gist's in "Early Settlers," — postea. Chapter VII. 

* The reader must understand, that at this early day, ilonongahela was a locality 
which covered an ample scope of territory. " Gist's Plantation" was about sixteen 
miles from the river, which, when Washington wrote this, he had never seen. 



CH. IV.] THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &C. 41 

The 6th, we met seventeen horses, loaded witli materials and stores 
for a fort at the fork of the Ohio, and the day after, some families 
going out to settle." 

These parties whom Washington met, were going out under the 
auspices of the "Ohio Company," an association formed in Vir- 
ginia, about the year 1748, under a royal grant. Hitherto, the 
French and Pennsylvanians had enjoyed the trade with the 
Indians north of the Ohio, and around its head waters. The pur- 
pose of this Company was to divert this trade southward, by the 
Potomac route, and to settle the country around the head of the 
Ohio with English colonists from Virginia and Maryland. To 
this end, the king granted to the Company five hundred thousand 
acres of land west of the mountains, "to be taken chiefly on the 
south side of the Ohio, between the Monongahela and Kenhawa, but 
with privilege to take part of the quantity north of the Ohio. 
Two hundred thousand acres were to be taken up at once, and to 
be free of quit rents, or taxes to the king for ten years, upon con- 
dition that the Company should, within seven years, seat one hun- 
dred families on the lands, build a fort, and maintain a garrison, 
to protect the settlement." It will be seen that this grant did not, 
in its terms, embrace Fayette county territory ; yet, in the loose 
interpretations of that early period, the Company attempted settle- 
ments within our limits, which for many years afterwards were 
supposed not to be included in Penn's Charter; but to be part of 
the vast and undefined royal domain of Virginia.* The incipient 
movements of this Company provoked the French and Pennsyl- 
vania traders to jealousy, and to stir up the Indians to hostility; 
thereby at once raising a cloud upon its prospects, which eventfully 
produced a torrent of' blood which obliterated all its labors. 
Still, to this Company Fayette county is much indebted, not only 
for many scenes of historic interest, but to its early settlement, by 
means of the easy access, caused by the making of Braddock's 
road; which, as we have seen, was but an improvement of the 
Company's road, originally opened by Nemacolin. 

It is said that Col. Cresap, of Maryland, the "Commissioner" 
of the Nemacolin road, was one of the Company. It is certain 
that Gen. Washington's brothers, Lawrence and John Augustine, 
were largely interested in it, and, as well as their more illustrious 



* See further as to these matters, in the subsequent Sketches of "Boundary Contro- 
versy," and "Early Settlements" — Chaps. VI. and IX. 



42 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. 

brother, were anxious for its success. Christopher Gist was the 
Company's agent to select the lands and conciliate the Indians.* 
The Company, having imported from London large quantities of 
goods for the Indian trade, and engaged several settlers, had estab- 
lished trading posts at Wills' creek, (the New Store,) the mouth of 
Redstone, (the Hangard,) the mouth of Turtle creek, (Frazier's,) 
and elsewhere; had planned their fort at the "forks of the Ohio," 
(Pittsburgh) and were proceeding energetically to the consumma- 
tion of their designs ; — designs which, although they did not orig- 
inate, yet served to hasten the great and decisive contest for 
supremacy over the land we now inhabit, between two very dissim- 
ilar branches of the great Teutonic race. The parties whom 
Washington met, were the pioneer heralds of the conflict. 

The next movement in furtherance of the great end, was of a \ 
martial character; and it too traversed our territory. Early in 
1754, Captain Trent was sent out from Virginia, with about forty 
men — intended to be recruited on the way — to aid in finishing the 
fort at the forks of the Ohio, already supposed to be begun by the 
Ohio Company. The captain's line of march was along Nema- 
colin's trail to Gist's, and then, by the Redstone trail to the mouth 
of that creek ; where, after having built the store house called 
the Hangard,^ he proceeded, probably by land and ice, to the forks 
of Ohio, where he arrived on the 17th of February, and went to 
work on the fort — which soon proved a vain labor. 

Trent had returned to Wills' creek, and Frazier (Lieutenant of 
the forces,) was at his trading post, leaving Ensign Ward in com- 
mand ; when, on the 17th of April, he had to surrender to a large 
French force, which suddenly descended the Allegheny upon him ; 
and he, with his little party, thereupon retreated, by canoes, up the 
Monongahela to Redstone, and thence across the mountains. The 
French thereupon finished the fort, naming it Fort Du Quesne, in 
honor of the Governor-general of Canada. 

The repulse of Ensign Ward was regarded as an overt act of 
war, for which preparations had before been made in several of the 
Colonies; and the loyal descendants of the old cavaliers in Vir- 
ginia flew to arms. About the first of May, 1754, three com- 
panies of a regiment of Virginia provincials, commanded by 
Lieutenant-colonel George Washington, set out from Wills' creek 



5 See further us to Christopher Gist, in the memoir of him among "Early Settlers," 
postea, — Chap. VII. 

® This ancient erection and its site, &c., will be particularly described hereafter. 



CH. IV.] THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &C. 43 

to drive the French from Fort Du Quesne. They had to make the 
road which Braddock adopted the next year. By the 9th they 
reached the Little Meadows, (Tomlinson's) where more than two 
days were spent in bridging the Little Yough. On the 18th they 
arrived at the Great Crossings, (Somerfield) and remained there 
several days, while Washington, with five men in a canoe, 
descended the river to ascertain if it was navigable. His hopes 
and his voyage ended at the Ohio Pile Falls. They crossed this 
river without bridging. 

May 24th, the forces arrived at the Great Meadows, (Mount 
Washington) where, and in its vicinity, events of stirring and 
lasting interest were soon to be enacted. We must now ask to be 
more special in our details. 
^ When Washington first encamped at the Great Meadows, he 
had but about one hundred and fifty men, soon after increased to 
three hundred, in six deficient companies, commanded by Cap- 
tains Stephen, (to whom Washington there gave a Major's com- 
mission,) Stobo, Van Braam, Hogg, Lewis, George Mercer and 
Poison ; and by Major Muse, who joined Washington, with rein- 
forcements, and with nine swivels, powder and ball, on the 9th of 
June. He had been Washington's military instructor, three years 
before, and now acted as quartermaster. Captain Mackay, with the 
Independent Royal Company, from South Carolina, of about one 
hundred men, came up on the 10th of June, bringing with him 
sixty beeves, jive days allowance of flour, and some ammunition, 
but no cannon, as expected. Among the subordinate officers, were 
Ensign Peyronie, and Lieutenants Waggoner and John Mercer. 

Besides the illustrious commander, who became a hero, " not 
for one age, but for all time," several of these officers became, 
afterwards, sooner or later, men of note. Stephen was a captain in 
the Virginia regiment, at Braddock's defeat, and wounded. He 
rose to be a colonel in the Virginia troops, and to be a general in 
the war of the Revolution. Stobo was the engineer of "Fort 
Necessity," and he, with Van Braam, were, at the surrender, given 
up as hostages to the French, until the return of the French 
oflicers taken in the fight with Jumonville. But the Governor of 
Virginia refusing to return them, the hostages were sent to Canada. 
Stobo, after many hair-breadth escapes, finally returned to Virginia 
in 1759, whence he went to England.' Van Braam was a Dutch- 



■f Neville B. Craig, Esq., of Pittsburgh, has made quite an interesting little book 
out of the "Life and Adventures of Cuptain Stobo." 

Van Braam had been Washington's instructor in the sword exercise. 



44 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. 

man, who knew a little French, and having served Washington as 
French interpreter the previous year, was called upon to interpret 
the articles of capitulation, at the surrender of "Fort Necessity;" 
and has been generally, but unjustly, charged with havmg ivillfuUi/ 
entrapped Washington to admit that the killing of Jumonville, was 
an assassination. He returned to Virginia in 1760, having been 
released after the conquest of Canada by the English; but the 
capitulation blunder sunk him. Captain Lewis was the General 
Andrew Lewis, of Bottetourt, in the great battle with the Indians 
at Point Pleasant, in Dunmore's war of 1774, and was a distin- 
guished general officer in the Revolution, whom Washington, it 
is said, recommended for commander-in-chief. He was a captain 
in Braddo^k's campaign, but had no command in the fatal action, 
and was with Major Grant at his defeat, at Grant's Hill, (Pitts- 
burgh) in September, 1758. Poison w^as a captain at Braddock's 
defeat, and killed. Of Captain Hogg, we know but little. Captain 
Mackay^ was a royal officer, and behaved in this campaign with 
discretion, yet with some hauteur, as we shall see. Except that he 
afterwards aided Colonel Innes, of l!^orth Carolina, in building 
Fort Cumberland, nothing more is known of him. Peyronie was 
a French Protestant Chevalier, settled in Virginia, was badly 
wounded at "Fort ^Necessity," and was a Virginia captain in 
Braddock's defeat, and killed. Waggoner was wounded in the 
Jumonville skirmish, became a captain in Braddock's campaign, 
and behaved in the fatal action with signal good sense and 
gallantry. He escaped unhurt. 

We may as well here mention other distinguished personages 
who figured about "Fort ISTecessity" while Washington's little 
army was there. Of these were Christopher Gist, already named. 
Dr. James Craik, the friend and family physician of Washington, 
until his death. Tenacharison, the half-king of the Seneca tribe 
of the Iroquois, a fast friend of Colonel Washington and the Eng- 
lish; Monacatootha, alias Scarayoddy, also a Six Illation Chief; 
Queen Aliquippa^ and her son, and Shiugiss, a Delaware Chief. 
Between the affair with Jumonville and the surrender, manv 



8 Famous for her residence where M'Keesport now is, and for having taken offence 
at Washington for not having called to see her when on his outward trip to the French 
posts in November, 1753 ; which, however, he atoned for on his return, by paying her a 
visit and presenting to her a watch coat and a bottle of rum, — the latter of which, he 
says, she prized much the most highly. No wonder. He should have given her a peltt- 
coat. 



OH. IV,] THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &C. 45 

friendly Indians, with their families, in alarm, took refuge at the 
fort — in all about two hundred. Except the efficient aid of the 
half-king, and a few others as scouts, they were of no other ser- 
vice than to consume the scanty provisions at the fort. In the 
action of the 3d of July they were wholly inefficient — though 
they did some execution in the attack on Jumonville's party. 
After the surrender they retreated with Washington to Virginia ; 
but soon after took refuge in the interior of Pennsylvania, at 
Aughwick, and were for a while maintained by that Colony. 
Under the influence of Colonel Croghan, the Deputy Koyal 
Indian Agent, their services were offered to General Braddock the 
next year ; but he treated them so neglectfully that they gradually 
left him. The half-king died in October, 1754, at Harris's Ferry. 
We now return to the narrative of events in their order. 

When Washington marched from Wills' creek with his little 
force, it was not his purpose, without strong reinforcements and 
artillery, to proceed to attack the French in their new Fort 
Du Quesne. From the first he designed only to make a road across 
the mountains, and to reach the Ohio Company's store house at 
the mouth of Redstone, and there erect a fort; whence, when 
sufficiently rei*iforced, he could move to the attack, sending his 
artillery and heavy stores by water. To accomplish this was his 
aim throughout the campaign 

During his march, almost daily, reports were brought to him 
from the French Fort, by scouts, traders, Indians and deserters. 
He had also intelligence of parties of French and Indians coming 
towards him for various purposes, hostile and inquisitive. About 
the first of May, a party, under M. La Force, left their fort, as 
they represented, to hunt deserters. Washington sent a party to 
hunt them — but did not find them. 

On the morning of the day of the arrival of Washington at the 
Great Meadows (May 24th.) the half-king sent him a letter saying 
that "the French army" was moving against him. He thereupon 
hastened to the Meadows, where, the same evening, the half-king's 
warning was confirmed by a trader, who told him the French 
were at the Crossings of the Youghiogheny (Stewart's) about 
eighteen miles distant, and that he had seen two Frenchmen at 
Gist's the night before. Washington immediately began to lortify. 
And three days afterwards, in the effervescence of youthful valor, 
as yet untried, he writes, — " We have, with nature's assistance, 
made a good entrenchment, and by clearing the bushes out of 
these meadows, prepared a charming field for an encounter." 



46 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. 

This "French army" was the Jumonville party, commanded hy 
M. La Force. Under date of May 27th, Washington writes, — 
" This morning Mr. Gist arrived from his place, where a detachment 
of fifty men was seen yesterday at noon, commanded by M La 
Force He afterwards saw their tracks within five miles of our 
camp. I immediately detached seventy-five men in pursuit of 
them, who I hope will overtake them before they get to Redstone^ 
where their canoes lie." This latter idea seems to have been an 
error. If canoes were there they probably belonged to friendly 
Indians ; for the French came by the ISTemacolin path. 

That same night (27th) the half-king, who, with some of his 
people and Monacatootha, were encamped about six miles from the 
Meadows, sent Washington an express, saying that he had tracked 
the Jumonville party to its hiding place, about half a mile from 
the path, in a very obscure camp, surrounded with rocks. Wash- 
ington, with forty men, set out that dark and rainy night for the 
Indian camp ; where, after council held, an attack was determined 
to be made at once. It was done early in the morning of the 
28th. The French were surprised, Jumonville and others killed 
and scalped by the Indians, and M. La Force, M. Drouillon, two 
Cadets, and seventeen others made prisoners." Tkese were sent 
off at once to the Governor of Virginia, where most of them, 
especially M. La Force, "a person of great subtilty and cunning,'" 
and who gave Washington a good deal of trouble at Venango the 
year previous, were detained a long time, contrary to Washington's 
agreement at the subsequent surrender. 

This attack, and the killing of Jumonville, raised the ire of the 
French to a high degree, and have figured largely in the annals 
of that period. It was the first shedding of blood in this eventful 
war. The French made a hero of Jumonville, and called his 
killing an assassination. And amid the confusion of the surrender 
of the 3d of July, and the stupidity of Van Braam, Washington 



^ This, — not Fort Necessity, was really " Wasliingti n's first battle ground." Con- 
cerning it he wrote shortly after, " I fortunately escaped without any wound; for the 
right wing where I stood, was exposed to, and received all the enemy's fire; and it wa» 
the part where the man was killed and tlie rest wounded. I heard Ike, bullets whistle; and 
believe vie, there is something charming in the sound" The letter from which this is taken 
was written to his brother, and was published in the London Magazine ; where George 
II. saw it; and thereupon dryly observed, " He Avould not say so if he had been used 
to hear many." So thought Washington himself in after j^ears, when suc'ri music Lad 
lost its charm. Upon being asked if he had ever uttered such rodomontade, he auswerwl 
gravely — "If I said so, it was when 1 was young." 



CH. IV.] THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &C. 47 

was made to sign an admission, in the Frencli language, which he 
knew not, of the truth of the charge ; — a blander which afterwards 
gave him no little uneasiness, but from which his fame has been 
fully relieved. 

It was claimed by the French that Jumonville was a peaceful 
envoy, with a martial retinue for protection ; and it may be that in 
some sense he was such. But his circumjacents were sadly against 
him. His party were acting as spies, and were in hostile array. 
Hostilities had begun by the repulse of Ensign Ward. Besides, 
this French party had been near to Washington's camp for several 
days without revealing themselves or seeking an interview ; and 
they had chosen a singular locality for an ambassador's Court. 
Washington would have been greatly derelict had he not attacked 
them. 

''^ Jumonville' s Camp " is a place well known in our Mountains. 
It is near half a mile southward of Dunbar's Camp, and about five 
hundred yards eastward of Braddock's road — the same which 
Washington was then making. The Half-king's Camp was about 
two miles farther south, near a fine spring, since called WasJwig- 
ton's Spring, about fifty rods northward of the Great Rock. 

The half-king discovered Jumonville's, or La Force's Camp by 
the smoke which rose from it, and by the tracks of two of the 
party who were out on a scouting excursion. Crawling stealthily 
through the laurel thicket which surmounts the wall of rock 
twenty feet high, he looked down upon their bark huts or lean-to's; 
and, retreating with like Indian quietness, he immediately gave 
Washington the alarm. There is not above ground, in Fayette 
County, a place so well calculated for concealment, and for secretly 
watching and counting AVashiugton's little army as it would pass 
along the road, as this same Jumonville's Camp. 

The discomfiture of La Force's party, and death of Jumonville, 
were immediately heralded to Contrecoeur at Fort Du Quesne by a 
frightened, barefooted fugitive Canadian ; and vengeance was 
vowed at once. But it was not yet quite ready to be executed. 
Washington, however, knowing the impressions which this, his 
first encounter, would make upon the enemy, at once set about 
strengthening his defences. He sent back for reinforcements, and 
had his fort at the Meadows palisadoed and otherwise improved. 
And, to increase his anxieties, the friendly Indians, with their 
families, and several deserters from the French, flocked around his 
camp, to hasten the redaction of his little store of provisions. 
Farther embarrassments awaited him. 



48 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. TCH. IV. 

On the 9th of June, Major Muse came up with the residue of 
the Virginia regiment, the swivels and some ammunition ; but it 
was now ascertained that the two independent companies from 
New York, and one from North Carolina, that were promised, 
would fail to arrive until too late. The latter only reached Cum- 
berland after the surrender ; while the fixed antipathies to war and 
proprietory prerogative, of the Pennsylvania Assembly, had 
rendered all Governor Hamilton's entreaties for aid from that 
Colony ineffectual. In this extremity, Colonel "Washington dis- 
played the same energy and prudence which carried him so 
successfully through the dangers and disappointments of the 
Revolution. He hired horses to go back to Wills' creek for more 
balls and provisions, and induced Mr. Gist to endeavor to have the 
artillery, &c., hauled out by Pennsylvania teams — the reliance upon 
Southern promises of transport having failed, as it did with 
Braddock. But no artillery came in time, ten only, of the thirty 
four-pounder cannon and carriages, which had been sent from 
England, having been forwarded to Wills' creek, but too late. 
Washington also took active measures to have a rendezvous at 
Redstone, of friendly Indians from Logstown and elsewhere below 
Du Quesne ; but in this he failed. 

On the next day (the 10th,) Captain Mackay came up with the 
South Carolina Company ; but as he bore a king's commission, 
he would not receive orders from the provincial colonel, and 
encamped separate from the Virginia troops ; neither would his 
men do work on the road. To prevent mutiu}', and a conflict of 
authority. Colonel Washington concluded to leave the royal cap- 
tain and his company to guard the fort and stores, while he, on 
the 16th, set out with his Virginia troops, the swivels, some wagons 
&c., for Redstone, making the road as they went. So difficult was 
this labor over Laurel Hill, that two weeks were spent in reaching 
Gist's, a distance of thirteen miles. 

On the 27th of June, Washington detached a party of some 
seventy men under Captain Lewis, to endeavor to clear a road 
from Gist's to the mouth of Redstone ; and another party under 
Captain Poison, were sent ahead to reconnoitre. Meanwhile 
Washington completed his movement to Gist's. 

Simultaneous with these detachments, something of a French 
army, on the 28th, left Fort Du Quesne to attack Washington. It 
consisted of five hundred French, and some Indians, afterwards 
augmented to about four hundred. The commander was M. 
Coulou de Villiers, half brother of Jumonville, who sought the 



CH. IV.] THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &C. 49 

command from Contrecoear as a special favor, to enable him to 
avenge his kinsman's "assassination." They went up the Monon- 
gahela in periagiias [big canoes,] and on the 30th came to the 
Hangard at the mouth of Redstone, and encamped on rising 
ground about two musket shot from it. This Hangard (built the 
last winter, as our readers will recollect, by Captain Trent, as a 
store house for the Ohio Company,) is described hj M. de Yilliers 
as a " sort of fort built with logs, one upon another, well notched 
in, about thirty feet long and twenty feet wide." It stood near 
where Baily's mill now is. 

Hearing that the objects of his pursuit were entrenching them- 
selves at Gist's, M. de Yilliers disencumbered himself of all his heavy 
stores at the Hangard; and, leaving a sergeant and a few men to 
guard them and the periaguas, rushed on in the night, cheered by 
the hope that he was about to achieve a brilliant cowp de main upon 
the young "buckskin Colonel." Coming to the " plantation " on the 
morning of July 2d, the gray dawn revealed the rude, half-finished 
fort, which Washington had there begun to erect. This, the 
French at once invested, and gave a general tire. There was no 
response ; the prey had escaped. Foiled and chagrined, de Villiers 
was about to retrace his steps, when up comes a half-starved deser- 
ter from the Great Meadows, and discloses to him the whereabouts 
and destitute condition of Washington's forces. Having made 
a prisoner of the messenger, with a promise to reward, or to hang 
him, according as his tale should prove true or false, the French 
commander resolved to continue the pursuit Upon this we leave 
him, while we post up Colonel Washington's movements. 

Hearing of the French approach, Washington, being at Gist's on 
the 29th, began throwing up entrenchments, with a view there to 
make a stand. He called in the detachments under Captains 
Lewis and Poison, and sent back for Captain Mackay and his 
company. These all came, and upon council held it was deter- 
mined to retreat. The imperfect entrenchment was abandoned, 
and sundry tools and other articles concealed, or left as useless. 
The lines of this old fortification have been long obliterated, but 
its position is known by the numerous relics which have been 
ploughed up. It was near Gist's Indian's hut and spring, about 
thirty rods east of Jacob Murphy's barn, and within fifty rods of 
the centre of Fayette County. 

The retreat was begun with a purpose to continue it to Wills' 
creek, but it ended at the Meadows. Thither the swivels were 
brought back, and under the immediate device and supervision of 
4 



50 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. 

Captain Stobo, a ditch and additional dimensions and strength 
were given to the fort, now named "Fort Necessity." So toilsome 
was this hasty retreat, there being but two poor teams, and a few 
equally poor pack horses — that Washington and other officers had 
to lend their horses to bear burdens, and to hire the men to carry, 
and to drag the heavy guns. Captain Mackay's company were too 
royal to labor in this service, and the Virginians had to do it all. 
When they reached the Meadows on the 1st of July, their fatigue 
was excessive. They had had no bread for eight days ; they had 
milch cows for beef, but no salt to season it. Arrived at the fort, 
they found some relief in a few bags of chopped flour, and other 
provisions from the "settlements,"^" but only enough for four or 
five days. Thus fortified and provisioned, they hoped to hold out 
until reinforcements would arrive, but they came not. 

After a rainy night, early on the morning of July 3d, the enemy 
approached, strong in numbers and in confidence, but fortunately 
without artillery. A wounded scout announced their approach. 
The French delivered the first fire of musketry from the woods, at 
a distance of some four or five hundred yards, doing no harm. 
Washington formed his men in the Meadow outside of the fort, 
wishing to draw the enemy into an open encounter. Failing in 
this, he retired behind his lines, and, after an irregular inefiective 
firing during the day, and until after dark, the French commander 
asked a parley, which AYashington at first declined, but when 
again asked, granted. In this he behaved with singular caution 
and coolness ; anxious lest his almost total destitution of ammuni- 
tion and provisions should be discovered, yet betraying no fear or 
precipitation. The French and Indians had killed, or stolen all 
his horses and cattle, and thus his means of retreat were rendered 
as meagre a,s his means of defence. Yet with all these disadvan- 
tages, in numbers and resources, he obtained terms of surrender, 
highly honorable and liberal. Indeed, the French commander 
seems to have been a very fair sort of a man. The articles of 
capitulation were drawn and presented by him in the French lan- 
guage; and after sundry modifications in Washington's favor, 
were signed in duplicate, amid torrents of rain, by the dim light 
of a candle, by Captain Mackay, Colonel Washington and M. de 
Villiers. 

The French commander professed to have no other purpose 



^^ See notice of "Wendell Brown and family," in sketch of ^^ Early Settlers " postea. 
Chapter VII. 



en. IV.] THE FRENCH WAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &C. 51 

than to avenge Jumonville's " assassination '" and to prevent. any 
" establisliment " by the English upon the French dominions. 
Hence, the articles of capitulation agreed on, allowed the English 
forces to retire without insult or outrage from the French or 
Indians, to take with them all their baggage and stores, except 
artillery;, the English colors to be struck at once, and at day-break 
next morning (July 4th,) the garrison to file out of the fort and 
march with colors flying, drums beating, and one swivel gun. 
They were also allowed to conceal such of their effects, as by 
reason of the loss of their oxen and horses they could not take 
with them, and to return for them hereafter, upon condition that 
they would not again attempt any establishment there, or else- 
where west of the mountains. The English were to return to 
Fort Du Quesne the officGrs and cadets taken at the " assassina- 
tion " of Jumonville, as hostages for which stipulation, Captains 
Van Braam and Stobo were given up to the French, as we have 
before related. 

Such was, in substance, the terms of the surrender of " Fort 
J^ecessity." But so powerless in all the -phjsicalc of military 
movement had Washington become, that nothing could be carried 
off but the arms of the men, and what little of other articles w^ere 
indispensible for their march to Wills' creek. Even the wounded 
and sick had to be carried by their fellows. All the swivels were 
left. These were the " artillerj^" which the French required to be 
given up. It is said that Washington got the French commander 
to agree to destroy them. This was not done as to some of them — 
perhaps they were only spiked ; for in long after years, emigrants 
found and used several of them there. Eventually the}- were 
carried otf to Kentucky to aid in protecting the settlers of the 
"bloody ground." 

The French took possession of the fort, and demolished it on the 
morning of the 4th of July, a day afterwards to become as glori- 
ously memorable in the recollections of Washington, as now it 
was gloomy. 

Washington's loss in the action, out of the Virginia regiment, 
was twelve killed and forty-three wounded. Captain Mackay's 
losses were never reported. The French say they lost three killed 
and seventeen wounded. 

The French, apprehensive that the long expected reinforcements 
to Washington might come upon them hastily, retired from the 
scene on the same day, marching "two leagues," or about cix 
miles. On the 5th they passed Washington's abandoned entrench- 



52 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV, 

merit at Gist's, after demolishing it and burning cdl the contigimcs 
houses. At 10, A. M. next day, they reached the mouth of Red- 
stone, and after burning the Hangard, reembarked on the placid 
Monon<>;ahela. On the 7th they accomplished their triumphant 
return to Fort Du Quesne, "having burnt down," says M. de 
Villiors, in his Journal, " all the settlements they found." 

"Washington returned, sadly and slowly, to Wills' creek, and 
thence to Alexandria; and now the French colors float over the 
entire Mississippi Valley. 

The historian of " Braddock's campaign" (W. Sargent) asserts, 
upon what authority is not stated, that at the time of the surrender, 
"half the garrison was drunk." Be this true or not, it seems the 
materiel was there, for M. de Villiers records that when he took 
possession of the fort he very considerately executed the " Maine 
law " upon sundry casks of liquor, to prevent Indian excesses. 
And it may be, that in accordance with the " spirit of the age," the 
half-starved and rain-drenched soldiers w^ere allowed to season 
their sloiv beef and dry their powder and clothes with 7^mn, the 
only article they seem to have had a surplus of. 

There is cotemporary testimony to a much more pleasing fact: 
that Washington caused prayers to be said in the fort daily ; proba- 
bly read by himself (for he had no Chaplain,) from the ritual of 
the English Episcopal Church, then the legal religion of Virginia. 
His friend Lord Fairfax suggested this observance to influence the 
Indians. But Washington was doubtless " moved thereunto " by 
higher and holier considerations. 

If both these facts he fads, what an incoherent medley of order 
and confusion, of staid solemnity and swaggering courage, did the 
old Meadow fort present on that memorable day I And who 
knows but that both contributed to avert the horrors of an Indian 
onslaught, and to assuage the anguish of the surrender. Nor 
must we either w^onder at the strange association of influences, or 
censure Washington for their allowance. Two years afterwards, 
when Dr. Franklin played General on the Lehigh, he had for his 
Chaplain the Rev. Charles Beatty, a very worthy Presbyterian 
Minister, and a pioneer of religion in W^estern Pennsylvania, who, 
as Franklin records, served also as "Steward of the Rum," dealing 
it out just after the prayers and exhortations, to secure the soldiers 
attendance, "and never," says he, " were prayers more generally 
or more punctually attended." 

The engraving and description of "Fort N-ecessity " given in 
Sparks' Washington (vol. 1, p. ;">6, and vol. 2, p. 457,) are inaccu- 



CH. IV.] THE FRENCH AVAR. — WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGN, &G. 53 

rate. It may have presented that diamond shape, in 1830. But 
in 1816, the senior author of these sketches made a regular survey 
of it, with compass and chain. The accompanying engraving 
exhibits its form and proportions." As thereby shown, it was in 
the form of an obtuse angled triangle of 105 degrees, having its 
base or hypothenuse upon the run. The line of the base was, 
about midway, sected or broken, and about two perches of it 
thrown across the run, connecting with the base by lines of about 
the same length, nearly perpendicular to the opposite lines of the 
triangle. One line of the angle was six, the other seven perches; 
the base line eleven perches long, including the section thrown 
across the run. The lines embraced in all about fifty square 
perches of land, or nearly one-third of an acre. The embank- 
ments then (1816,) were nearly three feet above the level of the 
Meadow. The outside "trenches," (in which Captain Mackay's 
men were stationed when the fight began, but from which they 
were Jiooded out,) were filled up. But inside the lines were ditches 
or excavations, about two feet deep, formed by throwing the earth 
up against the palisades. There were then no traces of " bastions," 
at the angles, or entrances. The junctions of the Meadow, or 
glade, with the wooded upland, were distant from the fort on the 
south-east about 80 yards, — on the north about 200 yards, and on 
the south about 250. l^orth-westward in the direction of the 
Turnpike road, the slope was a very regular and gradual rise to 
the high ground, which is about 400 yards distant. From this 
eminence the enemy began the attack, but afterwards took posi- 
tion on the east and south-east, nearer the fort. One or two field 
pieces skillfully aimed and fired would have made short work of it. 
A more inexplicable, and much more inexcusable error than 
that in Mr. Sparks' great work, is the statement of Colonel J3urd, 
in the Journal of his expedition to Redstone in 1759. He says the 
fort was round ! with a house in it ! That Washington may have 
had some sort of a log, bark-covered cabin erected within his lines, 
is not improbable ; but how the good Carlisle Colonel could meta- 
morphose the Hues into a circidar form is a mystery which we 
cannot solve. 



11 The lithographed view of "Fort Necessity," which forms the frontispiece of this book, 
varies a little, but not materially, from the description here given. The design of the 
young artist ( David Shriver Stewart, son of Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Fayette,) is to 
represent the Surrender, .on the morning of July 4, 1754. Washington is shown upon 
the only poor horse left capable of locomotion. In every respect, the picture is not only 
topographically, but historically correct ; losing, however, much of its force and beauty 
by having to be lithographed upon a much reduced scale. 



54 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. IV. 

The site of tliis renowned fort is well known. Its ruins are yet 
visible. It stands on Great Meadow run, whicli empties into the 
Youghiogheny. The " Great Meadows," with which its name 
associates in history, was a large natural meadow or glade, now 
highly cultivated and improved. The place is now better known 
by the name of "Mount Washington," on the National Road, ten 
miles east of Uniontown, the old fort being about 300 yards south- 
ward of the brick mansion, or tavern house. In by-gone da^'s 
thousands of travelers have stopped here, or rushed by, without a 
thought of its being or history ; while a few have thrown a rever- 
ential glance upon the classic spot. Washington, in all his after 
life, seems to have loved the place. As early as 1767 he acquired 
from Virginia a preemption right to the tract of land (284 acres), 
which includes the fort; the title to which was afterwards confirmed 
to him by Pennsylvania. It is referred to in his last will, and he 
owned it at his death. His executors sold it to Andrew Parks of 
Baltimore, whose wife, Harriet, was a relative and legatee of the 
General. She sold it to the late General Thomas Meason, who 
sold it to Joseph Huston, as whose property it was bought at 
sheriffs sale by Judge Ewing, who sold it to the late James 
Sampey, Esq., whose heirs have recently sold it to a Mr. Fasen- 
baker. An ineffectual effort was made some years ago to erect a 
■monument upon the site: it is hoped that it will yet be done. The 
"first battle ground of Washington" surely deserves a worthier 
mark of commemoration than mouldering embankments sur- 
mounted by a few decaying bushes. 



CHAPTER V. 

braddock's campaign. 

War in earnest — Albany Council — Indians join the French — Braddock's march — His 
Forces, Officers and Attendants — Slow movements — His encampments — Division of 
Army — River fordings — The Battle — Terrible defeat and losses — Retreat — Drought — 
Gist's Plantation — Washington — N. Gist — Dunbar's division — Dunbar's camp — 
Flight — Ancient tavern — Braddock's death — Grave — Who killed Braddock? — Tom 
Fossit — Career and Character of Braddock — Apology for Dunbar — Consequences of 
the Defeat — Foi-bes' conquest — No more battle on Fayette territory. 

By the acta of both parties a state of war now existed between 
England and France ; and the wilds of America became the arena 
and the prize of the conflict. Hence the expedition of Washing- 
ton in 1754 was followed in the next year by Braddock's campaign, 
" an enterprise," says Mr. Sparks, " one of the most memorable in 
American history, and almost unparalleled for its disasters, and 
the universal disappointment and consternation it occasioned." 
It was heralded with great preparation and promise, conducted 
with great show and expenditure, and ended in unprecedented loss 
of life and treasure. We purpose not to write its history, but 
only to record such of its events as transpired upon Fayette terri- 
tory ; noticing briefly other matters which seem needful for their 
being rightly understood.^ 

While Washington, in June, 1754, was wending his toilsome 
march from the Great Meadows to Gist's, a convention or council 
was sitting at Albany, composed of Commissioners from the 
colonies of JSTew York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the 



1 In the preparation of this sketch, we have drawn largely from that most valuable 
recent publication by the " Pennsylvania Historical Society," entitled " The History of 
an Expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1755, under Major General Edivard Braddock, 
Generalissimo of H. B. M. forces in America. Edited from the original manusci'ipts, by 
Winthrop Sargent, A. M., member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania." Octavo, 
1855. _ This is the most minute and interesting detail of the events of that expedition, 
and history of the French war in America generally, which has appeared. Every 
Fayette reader should peruse it. Its chief basis is the Journal of Captain Orme, one of 
General Braddock's Aids. But this has served only as a nucleus around which the 
author has gathered with unwonted labor and research, a full narrative of the causes 
and achievements of that eventful war. 



56 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

four jSTew England colonies, of the one part ; and chiefs and war- 
riors representing the Mingoes or Six Nations, of the other part. 
Among its results was a treaty or deed, by which the Indians 
named ceded to the Penns a very considerable portion of territory, 
calling for the southern and western limits of the province of 
Pennsylvania, but really, by the descriptive terms used, not extend- 
ing to either. This ambiguity, if such it could be called, and the 
ever encroaching spirit of the colonists, led to disputes and to 
jealousies on the part of the Indians. The Delawares and Shawa- 
nese, with considerable justness, asserted a right to the territory 
claimed to have been ceded, which the Six Nations could not 
alienate, and which the latter asserted with equal justness that 
they had not ceded, or did not intend to cede. The two allied 
tribes named were greatly dissatisfied, and complained that the 
cession, if as claimed, " did not leave them a country to subsist 
in." Of these difficulties the French, who now held possession 
and power in the west, availed themselves with great ease and 
effect to the prejudice of the English pretensions. These Indian 
tribes and confederacy of tribes gradually and generally became 
hostile to the Anglo-Saxon colonists. And even the few who had 
adhered to Washington in 1754, wavered, and finally and almost 
wholly attached themselves to the French. As heretofore stated, 
these friendly Indians, after having retired with Washington's 
retreating forces for a while to Virginia, soon took refuge at 
Aughwick, in Pennsylvania. But the outside influences were, in 
1755, against the continuance of their friendship. The Ilalf-king, 
their IsTestor and Achilles, died in October, 1754, at Harris' Ferry ; 
and in April, 1755, the Pennsylvania colony refused longer to sup- 
port them and their destitute families. 

This adverse state of the colonial relations with the lords of the 
soil, told with terrible effect upon the fortunes of Braddock and 
his army ; and when to it is added the neglect and maltreatment 
by Braddock of the few who evinced a willingness to uphold his 
standard, we have the key to his fate. But eight, — among them 
Monacatootha, or Scarrayoddy, followed his colors up to the fatal 
day ; whilst, with other advantages, the French brought hundreds 
to their aid, led, it is said, by the afterwards renowned Pontiac. 

On the 7th, 8th and 10th of June, 1755, the array of Major 
General Sir Edward Braddock marched from fort Cumberland, 
or the mouth of Wills' creek. It consisted of the 44th Regi- 
ment of (English) Infantry, Colonel Sir Peter Halket, the 48th, 
Colonel Thomas Dunbar, sundry Independent (colonial) companies, 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 57 

a company of horse, another of artillery, a company of marines, 
&c., in all 2150, " besides the usual train of non-militants, who 
always accompany an army, women who could not fight, Indians 
who would not, and wagoners who cut loose their horses and fled, 
at the first onset." The other field officers were Lieutenant Colonels 
Burton and Gage (of Bunker Hill notoriety) ; Majors Chapman and 
Sparks ; Major Sir John Sinclair, Deputy Quarter Master General; 
Matthew Leslie, his assistant; Francis Halket, Brigade Major; 
William Shirley, Secretary ; and Robert Orme, Roger Morris and 
George Washington, Esquires, aids-de-camp to the General. We 
have, in the preceding sketch, named some of the Captains — 
Stephen, Lewis, Poison, Hogg, Peyronie, Mercer and Waggoner. 
These commanded provincial troops, chiefly from Virginia. The 
New York Independent companies were commanded by Captains 
Rutherford and Horatio Gates, the General Gates to whom 
Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. Christopher Gist and hia son 
Ij^athaniel, accompanied the army as guides ; George Croghan, the 
Indian Agent, of Aughwick, with Montour, interpreter, were also 
about, trying to be useful in the Indian department, aided by 
Monacatootha and Captain Jack, the " wild hunter of the Juniata." 
Among the Virginia surgeons, were Doctors James Craik and 
Hugh Mercer, men of imperishable fame.^ They were both 
Scotchmen, the latter having fled to Virginia from the service of 
the Pretender on the fatal field of CuUoden. Dr. Craik had 
followed Washington in his campaign^of 1754, was his companion 
in his journey to the west in 1770, and was his physician at his 



'■'■ Both these distingiiished men became owners of land in what is now Fayette County. 
Dr. Craik owned the two tracts called " Boland's camp," and " Froman'a Sword," on 
Boland's and Bute's Runs, in Franklin township, which are warranted in the name of 
James Craig. General Douglas, as his attorney in fact, sold them to Samuel Bryson. 
They have since been owned by the late James Paull, Jr., John Bute, the Aliens and 
others. 

Dr. Mercer's lands were two tracts near Braddock's road in Bull-skin township, pat- 
ented to him by the Penns in 1771. His executors sold them to Colonel Isaac Mcason. 
See note (13,) to "Early Settlements," Chapter VI. Dr. Mercer was badly wounded at 
Braddock's field; and being unable to escape in the general flight, concealed himself for 
a while behind a fallen tree, where he witnessed the plundering and scalping of the 
dead and dying. At night he set out alone ; and guided by the stars and streams, after 
several days of painful, half starved wandering, reached fort Cumberland in safety. A 
like misfortune befel him when serving as Captain in Colonel John Armstrong's expedi- 
tion against the Indians at Kittanning in 1756, from which he again returned a wounded 
wanderer, to fort Cumberland. He had a great life, which was reserved as a sacrifice 
in a nobler cause. 



58 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

death. Dr. Mercer became a field ofiicer in the Revolution, and 
fell at Princeton in January, 1777. 

One month was spent in the march from fort Cumberland to the 
fatal field. The route, as far as Gist's, was that of Washington the 
year before ; and although Washington had marched from Wills' 
creek to the Meadows in twenty-three days, making the road as he 
went, yet it took Braddock eighteen days to " drag his slow length 
along" over the same distance, and Colonel Dunbar eight days 
longer. Truly did Washington say that " instead of pushing on 
with vigor, without regarding a little rough road, they were halting 
to level every mole-hill, and erect bridges over every brook." This 
needless delay, like every thing else in this campaign, contributed 
its share of adversity to the disastrous result. For while Braddock 
was halting and bridging, the enemy was acquiring a force of resist- 
ance and attack which three days' quicker movement would have 
anticipated. 

At the Little Meadows (Tomlinson's) a division of the army in 
the march was made; the General and Colonel Halket, with select 
portions of the two regiments, and of the other forces, lightly 
incumbered, going on in advance, being in all about 1400. Colonel 
Dunbar, with the residue, about 850, and the heavy baggage, artil- 
lery and stores, were left to move up by " slow and easy marches ;" 
an order which he executed so literally as to earn for himself the 
soubriquet of "Dunbar the tardy." When, on the 28th of June, 
Braddock was at Sieivarfs crossings (Connellsville,) Dunbar was 
only at the Little crossings. Here, Washington, under a violent 
attack of fever, had been left by Braddock, under the care of his 
friend Dr. Craik and a guard, two days in advance of Dunbar, to 
come on with him when able ; the gallant Aid requiring from the 
General a " solemn pledge " not to arrive at the French fort until 
he should rejoin him. And as Washington did not report himself 
until the day before the battle, this pledge may be some apology for 
Braddock having consumed eighteen precious days in marching 
about eighty miles. 

According to Captain Orme's journal, the encampments, &c., of 
Braddock in Fayette were as follows : 

On the 24th of June he marched from Squaw's fort (near Somer- 
field,) six miles to a camp east of the Great Meadows, near the 
"twelve springs." He crossed the Yough without bridging, about 
half a mile above where the national road now crosses it. In this 
day's march they passed a recently abandoned Indian camp, indi- 
cating by the number of huts that about 170 had been there. " They 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 59 

had stripped and painted some trees, upon whicli they and the 
French had written many threats and bravadoes, with all kinds of 
scurrilous language." This encampment of Braddock was between 
Mt. Augusta and Marlow's, south of the ISTational Eoad. 

June 25th. — The army moved about seven miles, and encamped 
in what is now the old orchard, near and northwest of " Braddock's 
Grave," called then two miles west of the Great Meadows: — the 
General riding in anticipated triumph over the very spot which in 
twenty days was to be his last encampment. The army seems to 
have passed the ruins of Fort ISTecessity without a halt or a notice. 
It is singular they did not encamp there ; for Orme says they were 
late in getting to their ground, because that morning, about a 
quarter of a mile after starting, they had to let their carriages down 
a hill with tackle. In this day's march three men were shot and 
scalped by the enemy ; and the sentinels fired upon some French 
and Indians whom they discovered reconnoitering their camp — an 
annoyance now become so frequent, that on the next day Braddock 
offered a bounty of five pounds for every scalp that his Indians or 
soldiers would take. 

June 26th. — They marched only about four miles, by reason of 
the " extreme badness of the road," arriving at what Orme calls 
Rock Fort^ on Laurel Hill, a place now known as the Great Rock, 
near Washington Spring, and the Half-king's old camp, being a 
little over two miles southward of Dunbar's camp. We quote here 
from Orme's journal: "At our halting place we found another In- 
dian camp, which they had abandoned at our approach, their tires 
being yet burning. They had marked in triumph upon trees the 
scalps they had taken two days before, and many of the French had 
written on them their names and sundry insolent expressions. We 
picked up a commission on the march, which mentioned the party 
being under the command of the Sieur Kormanville. This Indian 
camp was in a strong situation, being upon a high rock, with a very 
narrow and steep ascent to the top. It had a spring in the middle, 
and stood at the termination of the Indian path to the Mononga- 
hela at Redstone.^ By this pass the party came which attacked 
Mr. Washington last year, and also this which attended us. By 
their tracks they seem to have divided here, the one party going 
straight forward to Fort Du Quesne, and the other returning by 
Redstone creek to the Monongahela. A captain's detachment of 



^ See preceding sketch of " Indian Trails, <5"C." — Cbap. III. 



60 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

94 men marched with guides, to fall in the night upon the latter 
division. They found a small quantity of provisions and a very 
large batteau, which they destroyed, but saw no men ; and the Cap- 
tain joined the General next day at Gist's." 

June 27th. — "We marched," says Orme, " from the camp at 
Rock Fort to Gist's Plantation, which was about six miles, the 
road still mountainous and rocky. Here the advanced party was 
relieved, and all the wagons and carrying horses with provision 
belonging to that detachment joined us." This advanced party 
consisted of about 400, under Lieut. Col. Burton, who, with Sir 
John Sinclair, had been sent in advance to cut and make the road, 
taking with them two six-pounders, with ammunition, three wag- 
ons of tools, and thirty-five days' provisions, all on pack horses. 

June 28th. — The army marched from Gist's, where the encamp- 
ment was near Washington's of the previous year — to a camp near 
to, and west of, Stewart's crossing* of the Yough, a short half mile 
below N"ew Haven, on land now of Daniel Rogers, formerly Col. 
William Crawford. 

It has been commonly supposed that a division of the army in 
the march here took place — the English troops, &c., here crossing 
the river and bearing northward ; while the Virginia, or colonial 
forces, went down the river and crossed at the Broad-ford, thence 
bearing more to the west, crossing Jacob's creek at Stouffer's mill 
— the two divisions re-uniting at Sewickley, near Painter's salt 
works. There may be error in this idea. Orme's journal has no 
notice of any such division. The Broad-ford route may be that 
which was traversed by the detachments, or convoys of provisions, 
&c., from Dunbar's division, which were from time to time sent up 
to the main army ; one of which, Orme says, came up at Thicketty 
run, a branch of Sewickley, on the 5th of July. Another detach- 
ment of 100 men, with pack horse loads of flour, and some beeves, 
according to Washington's letters, left the camp west of the Great 
Meadows on the 3d of July, with which he went, joining the army 
on the 8th, the day before the battle, "in a covered wagon." This 
convoy took up the one hundred beeves which were among the losses 
in the defeat. It is a noticeable fact, that Washington, enfeebled 
by a consuming fever, was so invigorated by the sight of the scenes 



* So called from the name of an early settler and Indian trader, -vrho was drowned in 
the Yough at or near the fording which for more than a century has commemorated the 
event. He probably had a temporary abode near the same place. Seo Affidavit of Wil- 
liam Stewart in Note (1,) to Memoir oithe Gists, in "Early Settlers" — postea, Chap. VII. 



CH, v.] braddock's campaign. 61 

of his discomfiture the previous year, as to seize the opportunity of 
celebrating its first anniversary by hastening on to partake in an 
achievement which, as he fondly hoped, would restore to his king 
and country all that had been lost by his failure. How sadly was 
he disappointed ! 

June 30th. — The army to-day crossed the Yough at Stewart's 
Crossing or Ford, in strict military style, with advanced guard first 
passed and posted. There is here a little confusion in Captain 
Orme's journal. ISTot only does he make the west to be the east 
side of the Yough, but he says, " We were obliged to encamp about 
a mile on the west [east] side, where we halted a day, to cut a 
passage over a mountain ! This day's march did not exceed two 
miles." It would seem the halt was on the 29th, before crossing 
the river; for the march is resumed on the 1st of July. This 
"mountain" is the bluff known as "the narrows," below David- 
son's mill. The camp is not certainly known ; probably on land 
late of Robert Long, deceased; — maybe it was south of the nar- 
rows, on Mr. Davidson's land. 

July 1st. — Says Orme, "We marched about five miles, but could 
advance no further by reason of a great swamp, which required 
much work to make it passable." The course was north-eastward. 
This siuamp can be no other than that fine looking champaign land 
about the head waters of Mountz's creek and Jacob's creek, north 
and east of the old chain bridge, embracing lands formerly of Col. 
Isaac Meason, now Geo. E. Hogg and others. 

July 2d. — The army moved in the same direction (east of north) 
about six miles, to "Jacob's Cabin." 

The localities of this and the last preceding camp cannot be pre- 
cisely fixed; and the curious reader and topographer is left to his 
own conclusions from the data given. Jacob's Cabin was doubtless 
the abode of an Indian, who gave his name to the creek on which 
he trapped and hunted. 

July 3d. — " The swamp being repaired, we marched about six 
miles to Salt-lick creek. This^ Salt-lick creek is Jacob's creek, 
and the camp at the end of this day's march was near Welshonse's 
mill, about a mile and a half below Mount Pleasant. 

Although now beyond the confines of Fayette, we may as well 
follow the army route to its end. From Welshonse's mill the 



'^ What is now known as Indian creek, a tributary of the Yough above Connellsvillc-', 
was also formerly called Salt-lick creek — whence Salt-lick township. Both derived 
their common name from the salt licks in the vicinity of their head springs. 



62 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

course was northward, passing just to the west of Mount Pleasant; 
thence crossing Sewickley (" Thicketty run ") near Painter's salt 
works; thence, hearing a little westward, it crossed the present 
tracks of the Pennsylvania Rail Road and Turnpike, west of Greens- 
burg, to the Bush fork of Turtle creek. Here Braddock aban- 
doned his wise design to approach the French fort by the ridge 
route, or Nemacolin's path, being deterred by the difficulties of 
crossing the deep and rugged ravines of the streams. Turning, at 
almost a right angle, westward, he got into the valley of Long run 
at or near Stewartsville, and went down it past Samson's mill, en- 
camping on the night of the 8th of July, where Washington joined 
him, about two miles east of the Monongahela. The army moved 
from this encampment early next morning, turning into the valley 
of Crooked run, which they followed to its mouth, and crossed the 
river at "Braddock's upper ford," below M'Keesport; thence down 
the river on the west side, about three miles, to Braddock's lower 
ford, just below the mouth of Turtle creek and Dam jSTo. 2, where 
they recrossed to the fatal encounter of the 9th of July. This 
double crossing of the river was to avoid the intervening narrows. 

It does not come within our design to rehearse the oft-told tale of 
Braddock's Defeat, which for more than a century has been a word 
of horror. Braddock had conducted the march hitherto with most 
commendable care and with signal success; and now, as he neared 
the object of his labor and ambition, he took all the precautionary 
measures to avoid surprise and disaster which his military education 
called for. But, unfortunately, he knew nothing of Indian gunnery 
and backwoods tactics. He was sensible that his near approach 
was known at the French fort, and that all his movements were 
closely and secretly watched. Hence, at the crossings of the river 
he had his advanced guards well posted, and having caused his 
soldiery to be well appareled and their arms brightened, he made 
a display well calculated to strike terror into the enemy's spies, 
and to inspire his men with a feeling very variant from a presage 
of the sudden discomfiture and death which in a few hours awaited 
them. Washington was wont to say that he never saw a more 
animating sight than the army's second crossing of the Mononga- 
hela. Coming events cast no disheartening shadow before them. 
Yet it was known that Sir Peter Halket, Mr. Secretary Shirley and 
Major Washington, were not without anxious forebodings. 

Controcoeur, the commandant at the fort, frightened at the 
exaggerated reports of the numbers and gun-power of the English, 
had prepared to surrender, or to fly, as his successor did before 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 63 

Forbes in 1758. Indeed he reluctantly yielded assent to any re- 
sistance. And when, on the 8th, MM. Beaujeau, Dumas and 
De Ligueris sought a detachment of regulars and Indian aid, it was 
merely to dispute the river passes and to annoy and retard the 
march of the English. They had caused the ground to be thoroughly 
examined, and knew well the ravines, or natural trenches, which so 
well served them for attack and protection in the conflict. But 
the English knew them not. Herein was Braddock's decisive 
deficiency. 

To comprehend the nature of the action and the incvitableness 
of Braddock's defeat, one must visit the field. He will there, even 
yet, see two ravines, dry, with almost perpendicular banks, just 
high enough to conceal, protect and tire from, capable of containing 
an army of 2000 men, putting down across the gently sloping 
second bank of the river towards it, one on each side of the line of 
Braddock's march, converging towards the high hill which over- 
looks the scene. And if he will imagine this second bank to be 
densely wooded, and covered with a thick and tangled web of 
peavine and other undergrowth, with a newly cut road, twelve feet 
wide, passing about midway between the ravines, and at no place 
more than eighty yards distant from one or the other, he will have 
fully before him the scene of the disaster. 

The French and Indians were about 900 strong, the latter being 
more than two-thirds of the force. They arrived on the ground 
too late to dispute the passage of the river. The army had crossed, 
formed its line of march, and was moving — marching into the 
snare — when the enemy appeared right in front and near the heads 
of the ravines. As if by magic, at a preconcerted silent signal from 
M. Beaujeau, the chief in command, the Indians at once disappeared 
right and left into the excavations, leaving only the little French 
line visible. These were engaged with spirit and success by Lieut. 
Ool. Gage, and until the Indians began to pour in their invisible 
deadly shots, the poise of battle favored the English. It soon 
changed, and no efibrts could restore it. Even tree fighting could 
not have saved the doomed English soldiery, who held their ground, 
fought well, and obeyed their oflficers as long as they had officers 
to command them. They were in the jaws of death, and nothing 
could have delivered them, except, perhaps, a timely charge of 
dragoons into the ravines, or a raking fire of grape or round shot, 
up or down their paths. The excuse for not essaying these expe- 
dients, is, that the ravines were unknown and invisible. Even yet. 
when all is clear around them, you do not discern them until you 



64 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

are almost ready to step into them. If the arch demon of Death 
had been commissioned to fit np an arena for surprise and overthrow, 
he could not have made it more complete. 

The further stages of the encounter, v^^hich lasted from about 
one to five, P. M., need not be here noted. Of the 1460, .besides 
women and other camp followers, who on that bright morning 
crossed the Monongahela, 456 were killed, and 421 wounded, many 
of them mortally. Out of 89 commissioned officers, 63 were killed 
or wounded. Among the killed were the brave Sir Peter Halket 
and the gallant young Secretary Shirley. All the artillery and 
ammunition, baggage, provisions, wagons, and many horses, were 
lost. The General lost his military chest, containing, it is said, 
.£25,000 in specie ($125,000), and all his papers. Washington also 
lost many valuable papers. In short, the officers and soldiers who 
escaped the carnage lost nearly everything, except the clothes on 
their backs and the arms in their hands ; many abandoning even 
these. Captain Orme saved his journal, now almost the only 
authentic continuous record of this most disastrous campaign. 

Braddock displayed, in the perplexing circumstances of the 
action, great activity and courage. His only shortcomings were 
those already noticed. He had four horses killed under him ; and, 
after having mounted a fifth, while in the act of issuing an order, 
near the head of one of the ravines, and near the end of the conflict, 
he received a mortal wound, the ball shattering his right arm and 
passing into his lungs. He fell to the ground, " surrounded by the 
dead and almost abandoned by the living." And had it not been 
for the devotedness of his Aid, Captain Orme, and the almost 
obstinate fidelity of Capt. Stewart, of Virginia, who commanded 
the light horse, the fallen General would have had his wish gratified 
— that the scene of his disaster should also witness his death. He 
was borne from the ground at great risk, at first in a tumbril, then 
on a horse. Every officer above the mnk of captain was now either 
killed or disabled, except Washington, who escaped unhurt, though 
two horses were shot under him and his clothes pierced with balls. 
So feeble and emaciated was he that day that he had to ride upon 
a pillow." The drums had beat a retreat just before Braddock fell, 
and now Washington undertook to give to it whatever of order it 
was susceptible of, — for it was a headlong flight. The retreat was 



8 Letter of Hon. Wm. Findley, of Westmoreland, relating Washington's own account 
of this disastrous day, in JNiles' llcgisler, Vol. XIV., page 179. 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 65 

by the same route as the advance, crossing the river at the same 
fording.' The enemy did not pursue, but remained to riot in 
scalps and plunder. 

Braddock was carried with the little remnant of the army that 
could be held together. It is not probable that the panic-stricken 
fugitives all returned to Gist's by the same path; — many, through 
fear of pursuit, betaking themselves to the woods and by-ways. 
The Pennsylvania wagoners, it is said, escaped to a man, astride 
their fleetest horses. Certain it is that by ten o'clock next morning 
several of them were in Dunbar's camp on Laurel Hill, nearly forty 
miles distant, with the tidings of Job's messengers. And one or 
two wounded officers were carried into the camp before noon of 
that day. 

After crossing to the west side of the river in the flight, a rally 
was effected of about 100 men, with whom were Braddock, Burton 
and Washington. From this point Washington was sent to Dunbar 
for aid, and wagons to convey the wounded. The road was then 
new and hard to find in the night. There had been a coldness 
between the General and Dunbar; hence it was deemed necessary, 
to ensure obedience, that Washington, as an aid-de-camp, should 
go with orders. Weak and exhausted as he was, he shrunk not 
from the duty. He set out with two men in a night so wet and 
dark that frequently they had to alight from their horses and grope 
for the road. Nevertheless, they reached Dunbar's camp about 
sunrise.® Braddock and his few followers reached Gist's about ten 
o'clock that evening. What a dismal scene did " Gist's plantation" 
present on that warm summer night, as the dying General and his 
few hungry and wounded adherents lay prostrate and sleepless 
around the Indian's spring, waiting for food and surgical aid to 
come from the camp of "Dunbar the tardy ! " 

Nathaniel Gist,^ son of Christopher, with " Gist's Indian," were 
dispatched from the battle-field to Fort Cumberland, with tidings 



' It is probable the river was then uncommonly low. In the Pennsylvania Colonial 
Records, Vol. VI., under date of June 6th, 1755, a Fast is proclaimed, because of "there 
having been no rain for tv;o or three months, and all sorts of grain near perishing, and as 
the General was beginning his march." The Allegheny was so low that the French had 
great difBculty in getting down from their upper forts. This fact, not, we believe, before 
noticed in any account of this campaign, may in some degree explain the difficulties of 
Braddock's and Dunbar's marches — the weakness of their horse power and the scarcity 
of flour and other provisions — there being no steam mills in those days. 

* Letter of Hon. Wm. Findley in XIV. Nilcs' Register, 179, before cited. 

» More of him hereafter, in memoir of the Gists, among '■'^ Early Settlers," Chap. VII. 

5 



♦56 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

of the overthrow, but with instructions to avoid passing by, or 
disturbing the repose of Dunbar. They traveled a-foot, and through 
unfrequented paths, to avoid the Indians. While snatching some 
repose during the darkness of the first night of their journey, in a 
thicket of bushes and grape-vine, on Cove run, a branch of Shute's 
run, within view of the camp fires of Dunbar, they mistook the 
noise of the movement of* some bird or beast for Indians, and run 
with the heedlessness of alarm. They thus became separated. 
But each wended his way cautiously and alone. When nearing 
their destination, upon emerging from the bushes into the open 
road. Gist saw a few rods ahead his long lost Indian, who had 
also just taken the highway! Like two soothsayers, they had to 
laugh at each other for their causeless alarm and separation.^" 

Although the suflerings of Braddock, in mind and body, were 
intense, he was not unmindful of his dismayed and wounded sol- 
diers. Upon the arrival, on the morning of the 11th, at Gist's, of 
some wagons and stores from Dunbar, he sent ofl" a convoy of 
provisions for the relief of those supposed yet to be behind, and 
ordered up more wagons and troops from the camp, to bring off the 
wounded. It is probable these humane provisions were available 
to but few. Except as to the general oflicers, and perhaps a few 
others, all the badly wounded were left on the bloody field to the 
merciless cruelties of the savages, or perished in its vicinity. In 
after years human bones were found plentifully all around, some 
as far off as three miles. 

Having made these arrangements, had their wounds dressed, 
and taken some food, Braddock and his adherents, on Friday, the 
11th, moved up to Dunbar's camp. We now go back a little, to 
trace the movements of Col. Dunbar. 

We left him at the Little Crossings on the 20th of June, with 
about 850 of the army, and the heavy artillery and stores. On the 
2d of July he passed the Great Meadows, and on the 10th is found 
at his camp on the top of Laurel Hill. How long he had lain there 
is uncertain — several days. 

It is, perhaps, ample apology for the slow movements of Dunbar, 
that, besides the rugged and steep passes of the mountains, the 
troops he had with him were the refuse of the army, very many of 
whom sickened and died on the way, with the Jinx, and for want 



If* I had this story from old Henry ^Beeson, the founder of Uniontown, who had it from 
Uist himself. — F. L. 



CH. v.] braddock's campaigx. 67 

of fresh provisions. The Indians and French constantly annoyed 
his march and beset his camps ; and, having got in his rear, cut off 
much of his scant}^ supplies. But the great cause of delay was the 
want of horse power to move his heavy train. After one day's toil 
at half the wagons and other vehicles, the poor jaded beasts had to 
go back the next day and tug up the other half, — often moving not 
more than three miles in a day, and consuming two days at each 
encampment. It was with more ease and rapidity that they moved 
down hill by block and tackle, than to ascend, by all their motive 
power of man and beast. So exhausted were the horses that an 
officer of the train estimated it would require twenty-five days for 
Dunbar to overtake Braddock, from the Great Meadows. And in 
the council of war held b}' Braddock at Jacob's creek on the 3d of 
July, to consider Sir John Sinclair's suggestion to halt, and send back 
all their horses, to bring up Dunbar's division, it was adjudged that 
with this aid he could not be brought up in less than eleven days, 
so weak were all the horses. Besides, it was never designed that 
Dunbar should overtake Braddock until the fort was captured. 
And this setting apart of him, his ofiicers and soldiers to an ignoble 
service — making it a "forgone conclusion " that they were not to 
share the honors or spoils of victory, soured their tempers and 
relaxed their exertions. 

Dunbar's Camp is situated south-east of the summit of Wolf hill, 
one of the highest points of Laurel Hill mountain, and about three 
thousand feet above the ocean level. It is in full view of Uniontown, 
to the eastward, about six miles distant, and is visible from nearly 
all the high points in Fayette, and the adjacent parts of Greene and 
Washington counties. The camp was about three hundred feet 
below the summit, and at about half a mile's distance, on the 
southern slope. It was then cleared of its timber, but is since much 
overgrown with bushes and small trees. It is, however, easily found 
by the numerous diggings in search of relics and treasure, by the 
early settlers and others even in later times. ISTear it are two fine sand 
springs, below which a dam of stones and earth, two or three feet 
high, was made, to aflbrd an abundant supply of water. This dam 
is still visible, though much overgrown by laurel. Into this spring, 
pool, or basin, it is said, when Dunbar's encampment was broken 
up, fifty thousand pounds of powder, with other materiel of war, were 
thrown, to render them useless to the enemy. Old Henry Beeson, 
the proprietor cf Uniontown, used to relate, that when he first 
visited those localities, in 1767, there were some six inches of black, 
nitrous matter visible all over this spring basin. 



68 THE MONONOAHELA OF OLD, [CH. V. 

The locality of Jumonville's hiding place, the Half-king's camp, 
the Great Kock, and Washington's spring, in reference to Dunbar's 
camp, have been heretofore noticed. The Turkey Foot, or " Smith's 
road," from Bedford, crossed Braddock's, or Nemaoolin's road just 
at this camp. Both are yet plainly visible ; and the remains of an 
old stone chimney near this cross-roads indicate the site of an 
ancient tavern," where many a pioneer halted, and many an old 
emigrant and settler took his "ease in mine inn." It is now a 
lonely spot. 

When the remains of Braddock's division rejoined Dunbar here, 
on the 11th of July, the camp was found in great consternation and 
disorder. Many had fled the day before, on the tirst tidings of the 
slaughter of the 9th. And, as had been the case upon that disaster, 
the wagoners and pack-horse drivers were among the first to fly, 
and were the earliest messengers of the defeat to Governor Morris 
of Pennsylvania, then at Carlisle, superintending the forwarding 
of supplies. From their depositions, taken before him on the 17th, 
they left about noon on the 10th. They say nothing of Washing- 
ton's arrival. that morning, but say that Sir John Sinclair and 
anotherof the wounded ofiicers had been borne into camp on sheets, 
and others of Braddock's men, wounded and w^hole, before they 
left. They all represented Braddock as killed — some qualifying 
it by saying he had been wounded, put into a wagon, and 
afterwards "fell upon and murthered by the Indians." 

Orders still continued to be issued in Braddock's name, though 
his life was fast ebbing away. Retreat became inevitable. The 
camp was abandoned on the 12th. All the stores and supplies, 
artillery, &c., which had been brought hither at such great labor 
and expense, were destroyed. Nothing was saved beyond the 
actual necessities of a flying march. These included two six- 
pounders, and some hospital stores, horses and light wagons for 
the sick and wounded, of whom there were over three hundred. 
The rest of the artillery, cohorns, &c., were broken up, the shells 
bursted, the powder thrown into the spring basin, the provisions 
and baggage scattered, and one hundred and fifty wagons burned. 
A few days afterwards some of the enemy came up and completed 
the work of destruction. 



" Tills must not be confounded with Fossit's, afterwards Slack's, "Hotel," which was 
■further south, near the Great Rock and "Washington's spring, where sundry old roads 
' united. 



CH. v.] bkaddock's campaign. 69 

It has been a curreDt tradition, based upon cotemporary state- 
ments/^ that some of the field pieces and other munitions of war, 
and even money, were buried or concealed near the camp ; and much 
time and labor have been spent in their fruitless search. This story, 
it seems, reached the ears of Dunbar while on his retreat from 
Wills' creek through Pennsylvania; and he and all his ofiicers, in a 
letter to Governor Shirley,'^ dated August 21, 1755, expressly con- 
ti'adict it in these words : " We must beg leave to undeceive you 
in what you are pleased to mention oi guns being buried at the time 
General Braddock ordered the stores to be destroyed ; for there icas 
not a gun of any kind buried." However, such things as cannon 
balls, bullets, brass and iron kettles, crow-bars, files, some shells, 
irons of horse gears and wagons, &c., &c., have been found by the 
early settlers and other explorers. 

The remains of the re-united army encamped on the night of the 
13th of July at the old orchard camp, "two miles west" of Fort 
JSTecessity. Here Braddock died — having, before he expired, it is 
said, but rather apocryphally, bequeathed to Washington his 
favorite charger and his body servant, Bishop. Mr. Headley has 
endeavored to give to Braddock's funeral the romantic interest of 
the burial of Sir John More, "darkly, at dead of night," by the 
light of a torch, instead of "lanterns dimly burning," and with the 
addition of Washington reading the funeral service. But he was 
buried in daylight, on the morning of the 14th, in the road, near 
the run and old orchard, and the march of the troops, horses and 
wagons passsed over the grave to obliterate its traces, and thus 
prevent its desecration by the enemy. The tree labeled "Brad- 
dock's Grave " indicates the place, nearly, where were re-interred, 



12 It is not improbuble that this belief originated from a letter of Col. Burd to Governor 
Mori'is, dated, Fort Cumberland, July 25th, 1755, in -which the Colonel relates in detail 
a dinner conversation at that place with Dunbar, then on his retreat, after which he 
adds: — "Col. Dunbar retreated with 1500 effective men [effective? — at least 300 sick 
and wounded, and as many more scared to death]. He destroyed all his provisions, except 
what he could carry for subsistence. He likewise destroyed all the powder he had with 
him, to the amount, I think, of 50,000 pounds. His mortars and shells he buried, and 
brought with him two six-pounders. He could carry nothing off for want of horses." 

So fully impressed was Col. Burd with this belief, that, when on his march out to cut 
the "road to Redstone" and build Fort Burd, in Septembei-, 1759, he stopped at Dunbar's 
camp — "the worst chosen piece of ground for an encampment I (he) ever saw" — and 
spent a day there. " Reconnoitered all the cayip, and attempted to find the cannon and 
mortars, but could not discover them, although we dug a great many holes where stores 
had been buried, and concluded the French had carried them off." 

i» VI. Colonial Records, 593. 



70 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

about 1820, some of the bones of a man supposed to be Braddoek. 
They had been dug out of the bank of the run, in 1812, in repairing 
the old road. They may, or may not, have been the bones of Brad- 
dock. The military accompaniments, said to have been found with 
them, indicate that they were. Several of the bones were carried 
off before the re-interment at the tree, many of which, it is said, 
were afterwards collected by Abraham Stewart, Esq., (who was 
the road supervisor when they were dug out,) and sent to Peale's 
Museum at Philadelphia, as curiosities ! "We doubt this tale. But 
it is a lasting stigma upon the British Government that it made no 
effort to reclaim the reliques of this brave but unfortunate com- 
mander, and that "not a stone tells where he lies." Col. Burd 
• says he found the spot of his interment, about " twenty rods from 
a little hollow," &c., when he came out in 1759. But Washington 
says" that when he buried him, "he designed at some future day 
to erect a monument to his memory ; which he had no opportunity 
of doing till after the Revolutionary war, when he made [in 1784] 
diligent search for his grave, but the road had been so much turned 
and the clear land so extended, that it could not be found." 

Who killed Braddoek? — has been made a grave question in tra- 
dition and history. For at least three-quarters of a century the 
current belief has been that he was shot by one Thomas Fossil, an 
old resident of Fayette county. The story is therefore entitled to 
our notice. Mr. Sargent, in his interesting " History of Braddock's 
Campaign," devotes several pages [244 — 252] to a collation of the 
evidence upon the question, and arrives very logically from the evidence 
at the conclusion that the story is false, got up by Fossit and others 
to heroize him, at a time when it was popular to have killed a 
Britisher. ISTevertheless, the fact may be that Fossit shot him. 
There is nothing in the facts of the case, as they occurred on the 
ground, to contradict it, — nay, they rather corroborate it. Brad- 
dock was shot on the battle field by somebody. Fossit was a 
provincial private in the action. There was generally a bad state 
of feeling between the General and the provincial recruits, owing 
chiefly to his obstinate opposition to tree fighting, and to his infuriate 
resistance to the determined inclination of the backwoodsmen to 
fight in that way, to which they were countenanced by the opinions 
of Sir Peter Halket and Washington. Another fact is that much of 
the havoc of the English troops was caused by the firing of their 



" Letter of Hon. Wm. Findley, before referred to, in XIV. Niles' Register, 179. 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. 71 

own men — wherever they saw a smoke. But Braddock raised no 
smoke, and when he was shot a retreat had been sounded. If, 
therefore, Fossit did shoot him, he must have done it purposely. 
And it is said he did so, in revenge for the killing of a brother for 
persisting in firing from behind a tree. This is sustained by the 
fact that Tom had a brother, Joseph, in the action, who was killed. 
All these circumstances, with many others, seem to sustain the alle- 
gation. Against it are the inconsistencies and falsities of other ^aris 
of the testimony of the witnesses adduced, and even of Fossit's own 
narrations. 

"I knew Thomas Fossit well.^^ He was a tall, athletic man, 
indicating by his physiognomy and demeanor a susceptibility of 
impetuous rage, and a disregard of moral restraints. He was, 
moreover, in his later years, somewhat intemperate. When Fay- 
ette county was erected, in 1783, he was found living on the top 
of Laurel Hill, at the junction of Braddock's and Dunlap's roads, 
near Washington's spring, claiming to have there, by settlement, a 
hundred acres of land, which by deed dated in April, 1788, he 
conveyed to one Isaac Phillips. For many years he kept a kind 
of tavern, or resting place, for emigrants and pack-horse men, and 
afterwards for teamsters, at the place long known as Slack's, now 
Robert McDowell's. His mental abilities by no means equaled 
his bodily powers. And, like a true man of the woods, he often 
wearied the tired traveler with his tales about bears, deer and 
rattlesnakes, lead mines and Indians. I had many conversations 
with him about his adventures. He said he ' saw Braddock fall, 
knew who shot him — knew all about it,' but would never ac- 
knowledge to me that he aimed the deadly shot. To others it is 
said he did, and boasted of it. 

" I once kept a country school in Fayette county. One day, 
when the children were at noon play, I heard a cry of, ' there's old 
Fossit, the man who killed Braddock.' The children feared him, 
his appearance and noisiness, especially when intoxicated, being 
rather terrifying. 1 knew him, and got him to sit down by a tree, 
which soon dissipated the alarm of the children. He at once began 
fluttering his fingers over his moiith to imitate the roll of a drum. 
This amused them. He soon got at his old rigmarole, which ran 
about thus : — ' Poor fellows — poor fellows — they are all gone — 
murdered by a madman — Braddock was a madman — he would 



1* The reader will understaiul that it is the senior of the dual authors who uow speak?, 
as elsewhere in these sketches in like cases. 



72 THE MONONQAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

not let US tree, but made us stand out and be shot down, when we 
could see no Indians: — yes, Braddock was a madman — he said 
" no skulking, no treeing, but stand out and give them fair English 
play ;" — if he had been shot when the battle begun, and Washing 
ton had taken the command, we would have licked them, — yes, 
we'd a licked 'em.' 'How could you have done that?' I asked. 
'Why, we'd 've charged on them, and driven them out of the 
bushes and peavine — then we would have seen their red skins, 
and could have peppered them — yes, we 'd 've peppered their red 
skins ! ' He would then repeat his 'boo-oo-oo — my old Virginia 
Blues — poor fellows — all gone,' &c., &c. — and tears would roll 
over his rough cheeks. 

"The last time I saw him was in October, 1816 He was then 
a pauper at Thomas Mitchell's, in Wharton township. He said he 
was then 104 years old, and perhaps he was. He was gathering in 
his tobacco. I stayed at Mitchell's two days, and Fossit and I had 
much talk about old times, the battle, and the route the army 
traveled. He stated the facts generally, as he had done before. 
He insisted that the bones found by Abraham Stewart, Esq., 
were not the bones of Braddock, but of a Col. Jones; — that 
Braddock and Sir Peter Halket were both buried in one grave, 
some fifty rods north-eastwardly of the place since marked as the 
place — that Braddock died at Dunbar's camp in the night, and his 
body was brought on to the next encampment, and buried in the 
camp, and that if he could walk to the place he thought he could 
point it out so exactly — near a forked appletree — that by digging, 
the bones could yet be found. 

"There are parts of this story wholly irreconcilable with well 
ascertained facts. There was no Col. Jones in Braddock's army. 
Sir Peter Halket and his son, Lieut. Halket, were killed and left 
on the field of battle. Braddock did not die at Dunbar's camp, 
but at the first camp eastward of it, and it is nowhere said that 
Braddock was buried in the camp, — but that might be true. 
Fossit died, I believe, in 1818, and was, consequently, according 
to his own statement, about 106 years old." 

The reader will naturally wish to know something of the previous 
history of Braddock and what was his military and private character. 

It is said he was an Irishman, but of Anglo-Saxon descent. His 
father bore the same name, and was an ofiicer in the Coldstream 
Guards, in which the son received his military training. The 
General was the only son, and left no issue. His two sisters also 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. T3 

died unmarried. This destitution of any near kindred may aid in 
accounting for the utter neglect of his remains and grave ; and for 
the absence of any attempt to vindicate his character from the 
aspersions which his appalling defeat rendered popular in England 
and America. 

At the early age of fifteen, Edward Braddock the younger entered 
service as Ensign in the second regiment of the Coldstream or 
Foot Guards, a very aristocratic division of the army, the body 
guard of Royalty, from the restoration of Charles II. to, perhaps, 
the present day — deriving its name from the place of its quarters. 
He rose rapidly through the grades of promotion without any signal 
achievements, and in 1745 became Lieut. Colonel. Yet it is re- 
corded that his regiment, under his command, behaved well at the 
battles of Fontenoy and Culloden. His patron and commander 
was the renowned Duke of Cumberland. In 1746 he was made a 
Brigadier- Greneral and sent on duty to Gibraltar. In March, 1754, 
he was gazetted a Major-General, and in September following was 
appointed Generalissimo of the forces to be sent to, and raised in, 
America, against the French. 

The appointment was a bad one, considering the country and 
the service he was to be employed in. He had too exalted an 
opinion of the universal efiiciency of old European modes of war- 
fare and of the regular arm, and too low an estimate of provincial 
troops and backwoods tactics. He was, moreover, haughty and 
imperious. Little was said of his private character prior to his 
death; but when gone to his last account, his reputation was 
blackened with almost all the crimes of the Decalogue, and many 
more — save that of cowardice; — his most rancorous defamers 
admit his bravery. No doubt much that was said against him was 
truly said, but there is as little doubt that great injustice has been 
done to his memory. That he was a gamester and a duellist is no 
doubt true ; but these were vices of his times and profession, of 
which better men than he were equally guilty. Says Horace Wal- 
pole, who delighted in the use of strong terms, " Desperate in his 
fortune, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his sentiments, he was 
still intrepid and capable." His secretary, the lamented young 
Shirley, wrote of him before the defeat: " We have a General most 
judiciously chosen for being disqualified for the service he is in, in 
almost every respect. He may be brave for aught I know, and he 
is honest in pecuniary matters." Bravery and honesty are very 
strong redeeming qualities. Dr. Franklin, whose sagacity and 
accuracy in estimating men was unsurpassed, says of him, that "he 



74 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

was a brave man, and might probably have made a figure as a good 
officer in some European war. But he had too much self-confi- 
dence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, and 
too mean a one of both Americans and Indians." But the opinion 
of Washington, given of him, in mature years, after he had passed 
through the Revolution, is doubtless nearer the truth than any 
other. "I mentioned IS [to Washington] the bad impression I had 
received of Gen. Braddock as an officer. 'True — true,' said he, 
'he was unfortunate, but his character was much too severely 
treated. He was one of the honestest and best men of the British 
officers with whom he had been acquainted; even in the manner 
of fighting he was not more to blame than others; — for, of all that 
were consulted, only one person [himself, probabl}',] objected to 
it.' And looking around seriously to me, he said, 'Braddock was 
both my General and my physician. I was attacked with a 
dangerous fever on the march, and he left a sergeant to take care 
of me, and James' fever powders, with directions how to give them, 
and a wagon to bring me on when I would be able,' &c." It is 
very manifest that many of the idle traditions which have so 
needlessly sought to exalt that truly great and just man at the 
expense of the fallen General, could have received no frame-work 
upon which to be woven, from him. 

Much opprobrium and censure was heaped upon Col. Dunbar, 
for not making a further eflJbrt to accomplish the object of the 
campaign, or at least making a stand until reinforced. But when 
it is recollected that great numbers of the troops with him, say 800 
— at best none of the best" — were sick ; — that half of his accessions 
from the crushed remains of Braddock's division, say 400, were 
wounded, and all half naked and panic-stricken — we must be 
satisfied that such an army was not the kind with which either to 
stand or advance, in a wilderness with hostile surroundings fiushed 
with spoil and victory, without horses to move, or a prospect of 
obtaining them. The best justification of Dunbar is in the fact, 
that with all the effiarts and resources of crown and colonies for 



^8 Hon. Wm. Fiudley's Letter relating a conversation with Washington while President, 
in XIV. Niles' Register, 179, before cited. 

^■f The two regiments — the 44th and 48th, of the Irish Establishment, which formed 
the main body of Braddock's army, had been recruited for the campaign in Ireland and 
London by enlistments "of the worst class of men, who, had they not been in the army, 
would probably have been in Bridewell.'" — SargenVs '■'History of Braddock's Expedition" 
&c., 135. 



CH. v.] braddock's campaign. . 75 

three succeeding years, and until Forbes' great army came in 1758, 
nothing was accomplished towards driving the French from Fort 
Du Quesne. Great talk and some eftbrt was made even that year 
(1755) in Virginia, under the influence of Col. Washington and 
Governor Dinwiddle, but nothing was done. The Virginia Gov- 
ernor proposed to the Governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
to raise a force, cross the mountains, and build, and garrison with 
800 men, a fort at the Great Crossings, (Someriield,) or at the 
Great Meadows. But the proposal was the end of it. 

For a long period succeeding the defeat of Braddock, the terri- 
tory of Fayette, in common with its adjacents, was given up 
entirely to the French and Indians, who seem to have used it for 
the subsistence of the forests, and as a field of transit for their 
predatory and warlike excursions further to the east and south; — 
which indeed they had begun before the defeat. For these purposes 
Braddock's road and the other ancient trails were much used. 
Says Washington, in a letter of May, 1756, to Gov. Dinwiddie, 
" The roads over the Allegheny Mountains are as much beaten 
as they were last year by Gen. Braddock's army." l^o white 
man not leagued with the new confederacy of French and Indians, 
could find a resting place in all the West. " You cannot conceive," 
wrote Gov. Morris of Pennsylvania to Gen. Johnson, in iNTovember, 
1755, "what a vast tract of country has been depopulated by these 
merciless savages. I assure you that all the families from Augusta 
county in Virginia [of which we were then considered a part] to 
the river Delaware, have been obliged to quit their plantations, on 
the north side of that chain of mountains that is called the 'Endless 
Hills.' "i« Indeed the desolation seems to have extended further 
eastward. In ITovember, 1756, the Provincial Council of Pennsyl- 
vania was credibly informed that in Cumberland county (then 
embracing all Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna, except what 
is now York and Adams) there were not left 100 men fit to bear 
arms, whereas a year before there had been over 3000. The colonies 
of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania sought to shut themselves 
up behind a chain of forts far to the east of their western limits, — the 
nearest to us being Forts Cumberland and Ligonier. Things 
remained thus, until, upon the accession of William Pitt, "the 
great commoner," to the Prime Ministry of England, new life and 



if The range which separates Franklin county from Bedford, and Huntingdon and 
Juniata from Ferry. 



76 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. V. 

energy were infused into the civil and military arms. Thereupon, 
in 1758, General Forbes was sent out with an army of foreign and 
provincial troops, in all about 7000, who, in November of that year, 
frightened the French from Fort Du Quesne, and reestablished the 
English power around the head of the Ohio: — thus ending forever 
the struggle for supremacy here between the Gaul and the Saxon. 
Fayette county had no part in this expedition. The conquering 
army came by a new road from Bedford, through Westmoreland 
county, though strongly urged by Col. Washington, who com- 
manded the Virginia levies, to take Braddock's road. 

The French party which came up to spoil the camp of Dunbar 
is the last hostile invasion that has ever pressed the soil of Fayette. 
In the perilous times which intervened, up to Wayne's great victory 
and treaty in 1794-5, Fayette territory was never, so far as known to 
history or tradition, the scene of any considerable fight, or Indian 
atrocity, of any kind. We shall have occasion frequently hereafter 
to notice this peculiar exemption, its reasons and results. Except 
when our citizens were promptly going forth to do, or were 
honorably returning after having done, yeomen's service in de- 
fending their own or invading the enemy's country, all the 
subsequent military movements within our borders have been upon 
the Peace Establishment. May it ever be so ; lor 

"Peace hath her victories, no less than ■war." 



CHAPTER VI. 

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 

A large Field — Penn's Charter — Quaker regard for the Indians — Dunkards and the 
Youghiogheny — Dunkards in Greene — First Settlers — The Browns — Gists — Gist's 
neighbors — The Ohio Company — French dominion — Col. Burd's Expedition — Military 
Permits — Titles about Brownsville and Bridgeport — Era of Settlement — Non-inter- 
vention — Pontiac's War — First Settlers from Virginia and Maryland — The West — 
Settlements trouble the Indians — Kingly and Colonial Anxieties — Names of Settle- 
ments — Settlers warned, and driven off by the Military — Indian Titles — Bald Eagle — 
Indian Stephen — Burnt Cabin — Bloody Law against Settlers — Mission of Piev. Steel 
to warn them — Names and Number of Inhabitants in 1768 — Indian Treaty — Settlers 
let alone — Indians sell out to the Penns — Titles begin — Surveys — Prices of Lands — 
Devesting Act — Proprietary Patents — Slavery abolished — Our Slav^-owners — Migra- 
tion to Kentucky — New Settlers — Quakers — Presbyterians — Dr. McMillan's Journal — 
Mount Moriah — The Baptists — Methodists — Associate Reformed — Episcopalians — 
Catholics — German Churches — Others — Country Churches — Old Schools — Country 
Academies — Dunlap & Littell's High School — Character of our Early Settlers. 

We now enter upon a large and diversified field. And if any of 
our readers shall recollect some rugged prominences, or little 
flowered nooks, whicli we do not sketch, we beg them, although 
our ignorance may be the true cause of their omission, to set down 
their absence to the want of room upon our canvas, and our 
inability to group them, consistently with the tout ensemble of 
the picture. Our effort shall be, faithfully and intelligibly to 
present to view all the strong features of the subject, and so to 
animate the sketch as to give to it, if not the reality, at least the 
semblance, of life and interest. 

Whoever has been curious enough to peruse the Charter for 
Pennsylvania, granted, in 1681, by Charles II. of England, will have 
seen that His Majesty, assuming the territory to be the "king's 
own," conveyed it to William Penn, his heirs and assigns, to hold 
in free and common socage, as of the Castle of Windsor, yielding 
and paying the yearly rent of two beaver skins and one-fifth of all 
gold and silver ore, and reserving unto the crown the sovereignty 
of the colony and the fealty and allegiance of its inhabitants. The 
Governors were to be appointed by the proprietaries, "by and with 
the advice and consent of" the king and council. To them, and 
to the freemen of the colony in Assembly, were committed all the 



78 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

powers of legislation and government, save that of making war, — 
subject to the revisal and approbation of their laws by the king and 
council, and to appeals from the provincial to the king's courts. 
But the appointment of all subordinate otlicers and iJie disposal of 
lands to settlers or others, were committed to the proprietaries only^ 
or their deputies or Governors, in their names; without any inter- 
ference or control by the Assembly, or by the king or parliament. 

This absolute power over the lands gave to the proprietaries, 
indirectly, a control over the settlers thereon, and enabled them to 
enforce their peculiar, peaceful and just policy towards the Indian 
nations. Indeed, one of the principal specified objects for which 
Penn sought the grant, was " to reduce the savage natives, by 
gentle and just manners, to the love of civil society and the Chris- 
tian religion." This cardinal purpose was steadfastly kept in view 
by the colonial government during its entire existence, and brought 
it often in conflict with the adverse purposes and conduct of settlers. 
The Penn policy was never to grant lands, or to allow any settlement 
upon them, until after they had been purchased from, and formally 
ceded by, the Indian owners. Immediate or direct purchases by 
individuals from the Indians were strictly forbidden. And so 
scrupulously just and conciliatory were the proprietaries, that when 
they found that the Indians did not comprehend the import and 
extent of the terms used in the deed of cession signed at Albany 
in 1754, to which we have before referred, they relinquished all 
beyond certain limits, to which the Indians admitted they meant 
to go. 

This unyielding deference to aboriginal title by the Penns became 
ingrafted into the character of the province, and was transmitted 
to the commonwealth. It was however not a characteristic of its 
neighbor, Virginia; who put it on, only as an outward profession, 
when the king commanded or self-interest demanded it. We shall 
presently see something of these antipodal courses of policy, and 
much more, when we come to the "Boundary controversy." 

When, as early as 1751, as related by Croghan and Montour, at 
a council of the Six Illations and Delaware and Shawnese tribes 
of Indians, held at Logstown on the Ohio, some sixteen miles below 
Pittsburgh, "a Dunkard from Virginia came to town and requested 
leave to settle on the Yogh-yo-gaine river, a branch of the Ohio; he 
was told that he must apply to the Onondaga council, and be 
recommended by the Governor of Pennsylvania." This little item of 
history reflects the peculiar non-intrusive Indian policy of the 
Penns, and is also the earliest recorded design (except that of the 



GH. VI. EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 79 

Ohio Company, which did not recognize Pennsylvania proprietor- 
ship,) of effecting an orderly settlement within the bounds of our 
county. It failed of accomplishment from some cause. Doubtless 
the applicant was one of the Eckerlin brothers who, a few years 
afterwards, located their little colony at the mouth of Dunkard 
creek in our neighbor, Greene ; whence, after giving their name to 
the stream, they soon removed to Dunkard's bottom on Cheat river, 
and thence to the south branch of the Potomac, where their history 
is as tragical as their character was peaceful and holy. They were 
in advance of the spirit of the times, and of the localities which 
they sought to people. 

We believe the lirst actual white settlers within our present 
county limits were the Browns — Wendell Brown and his two sons, 
Maunus and Adam, if not a third one, Thomas. They came in 

1751 or '52. Their first location was on Provance's bottom, a short 
distance below the mouth of little Jacob's creek. But soon after, 
some Indians enticed them away from that choice alluvial reach, 
by promises to show them better land, and where they would enjoy 
greater security. They were led to the lands on which, in part, 
the descendants of Maunus now reside, and erected their cabin 
upon the tract now the home of his grandson, Emanuel Brown, 
really among the best in the county. They came as hunters, but 
soon became herdsmen and tillers of the soil. It has been said 
that Frederick Waltzer was .contemporary with the Browns. We 
think this an error. He did not come for some years afterwards. 

The next settler within our bounds was Christopher Gist: and 

1752 has been generally stated to be the date of his settlement. 
But we think he did not acquire a local habitation here until 1753. 
In the Virginia Commissioners' certificate, given in 1780 to his 
son, Thomas Gist, for the land on which his father first settled, 

1753 is fixed as the year of his settlement. Washington's embassy 
to the French posts, when he speaks of having passed "Mr. Gist's 
new settlement," was in November of that year. His agency for 
the Ohio Company brought him here. His cabin was, we believe, 
on that part of the Mount Braddock lands now owned by Jacob 
Murphy, contiguous to the spring near his barn. By this early 
settlement he and his sons were enabled, in after years, to acquire 
the largest and finest body of lands ever owned by any one family 
in this county, embracing not only the Mount Braddock estate, 
now owned by Mr. Isaac Beeson, but also the fine farms of Isaac 
Wood, Jacob Murphy and P. C. Pusey; — a domain which many a 
German prince might give his kingdom for. 



80 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

We have seen it stated somewhere that " Gist induced eleven 
famihes to settle around him, on lands presumed to be within the 
Ohio Company's grant." This may be so. But the late Col. 
James Paull. whose father, George Paull, was an early settler in 
that vicinity, and intimately acquainted with the Gists, said he 
never heard of these settlers. What gives great probability, how- 
ever, to the statement, is the fact, stated by Monsieur Celeron, the 
French commander of the expedition against Washington at Fort 
ISTecessity, in 1754, that on his return, he not only ordered the 
houses at the entrenchment at Gist's to be burnt down, but detached 
an oificer "to burn the houses round about." He also took several 
prisoners at Gist's, It is certain that grants of lands within our 
county limits were made by the Ohio Company. These were prior 
to 1755, and were chiefly, if not wholly, in the Gist neighborhood. 
The Stewarts, who settled in the vicinity of, and gave name to, 
"Stewart's crossings," (Counellsville,) were unquestionably in this 
class of settlers.^ William Cromwell, son-in-law of Gist, set up a 
claim, under the Ohio Company, to a part of the Gist lands, " in 
the forks of the roads to Fort Pitt and Redstone," including Isaac 
Wood's farm, asserting, somewhat inconsistently, a gift of it to his 
wife from her father, and a settlement thereof in 1753. He sold 
his claim to one Samuel Lyon, between whom and the Gists a long 
controversy was waged for the title, wherein the Gists prevailed. 
It may be that others of the early settlers in that part of the county- 
had grants from this Company which, as the French war blasted 
the Company's prospects in this region, proved useless, and obliged 
them thereupon to secure their lands under Virginia or Pennsyl- 
vania. Such indeed was the case with the Gists. It is not unlikely 
that William Jacobs, who settled in 1761 at the mouth of Redstone, 
where the Hangard was built by the Ohio Company in 1754, 
claimed under that Company. 

The repulse of Washington in 1754, and still more decisively, 
the defeat of Braddock in 1755, put an end, for some time, to all 
efforts by the English colonists to settle vrest of the mountains; 
and all that were here at and before those events, were forced to 
retire for a time to the eastward, or south. The French never 
attempted any permanent settlements in this part of the country, 
and during their sway universal desolation reigned. Many of the 
old settlers returned after the expulsion of the French in 1758, and 



1 See note (1) to Memoirs of the Gists, in Chapter VII. 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 81 

resumed their possessions. Among these were the Browns and 
the Gists, whom we will further notice in the sequel. 

The expedition of Col. James Burd, in 1759, to open the " road 
to Redstone " and erect Fort Burd, led to some settlements in that 
vicinity, between that year and 1764, by persons who had been 
connected with the expedition, and by others. Of these were 
William Colvin, whose settlement right, acquired in 1763, to lands 
now of Eli Cope and others, he sold to Thomas Brown. It is 
probable that such was the origin of the titles of John and Samuel 
M'CuUoch to the land where Brownsville now is, extending from 
creek to creek, and whose rights, together with Cresap's, became 
vested in Thomas and Bazil Brown, to whom patents issued. 
Capt. Lemuel Barrett held the land where Bridgeport now is, 
under a " military permit from the commander at - Fort Pitt, 
in 1763, for the purpose of cultivating lands within the custom 
limits of the garrison then called Fort Burd." He was a Mary- 
lander. In 1783 he conveyed his title to Rees Cadwallader, the 
town proprietor. The land just above Bridgeport, on the river, 
embracing some three or four hundred acres, was, in early times, 
the subject of long and angry controversies — from 1769 to 1785 — 
between adverse claimants under "military permits." It was well 
named, in the official survey, which one of the parties procured of 
it under a Pennsylvania location, "Bone of Contention." One 
Angus M'Donald claimed it, or part of it, under a military permit 
from Col. Bouquet, dated April 26th, 1763, and a settlement on it. 
In March, 1770, he sold his claim to Captain Luke Collins,^ de- 
scribing the land as "at a place called Fort Burd, to include the 
held cleared by me where the sawpit was above the mouth of 
Delap's creek." Collins conveyed it to Captain Michael Cresap (of 
Logan's speech celebrity) on the 13th of April, 1772, "at half past 
nine in the morning," — describing it as situate between "Point 
Lookout and John Martin's land," — recently owned, we believe, 
by the late. Mrs. John S. Krepps. Cresap's executors, in June, 
1781, conveyed to one William ISchooly, an old Brownsville mer- 
chant, who conveyed to Rees Cadwallader. The adverse claimants 
were Henry Shryock" and William Shearer, assignee of George 



1 Of some celebrity in the " Boundary Controversy," and as the friend and correspond- 
ent of Col. George Wilson, which see — Chap. IX. 

2 Of Frederick county, Md. We find the name of Henry Shryock among the members 
of the Maryland Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States, in April, 
1788 — probably the same person. 

6 



82 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

Andrew. Their claim reached further southward towards the 
creek, and further up the river, covering the John Martin land. 
They sold out to Robert Adams and Thomas Shain. Although 
they had the oldest -permit (in 1762) their title seems to have been 
overcome by the settlement and official location and survey of their 
adversary. 

One Robert Thorn seems also to have been a claimant of part of 
the land, but Collins bought him out. This protracted contro- 
versy involved many curious questions, and called up many ancient 
recollections. No doubt the visit to this locality of Mr. Deputy- 
Sheriff Woods, of Bedford, in 1771, was parcel of this controversy.* 
Many of these early claims were lost, or forfeited, by neglect to 
settle the land, according to law, and thus were supplanted by 
ethers. They were valued by their owners at a very low mark, 
and often sold for trifling sums. 

These settlements, by virtue of military permits, began about this 
period — from 1760 to '65, to be somewhat numerous in the vicini- 
ties of Forts Pitt and Burd, and along the army roads leading 
thereto.* They were subsequently recognized as valid by the Penns, 
even before they had bought out the Indian title. This was a 
departure from their general policy, required to maintain those 
forts and keep up access to them. They were indeed regarded as 
mere appendages to the forts, and as accessories to the trade and 
intercourse with the Indians, and not as permanent settlements for 
homes and subsistence. The Monongahela river below Fort Burd, 
being in fact an army highway, came in for a share of these favors. 
Their aggregate was few, and they were often far between. 

It was not until about 1765-'6, that settlements, in the true and 
legitimate sense of the term, came to attract notice in what is now 



' See his Affidavit in sketch of "Boundary Controversy," — Chap. IX. 

* Even these military settlements would seem to have been contrary to the plighted 
faith of the English to the Indians, as given by Sir Jeffry Amherst, Commander-in-Chief 
of the British in North America, who at an Indian treaty held at Fort Pitt, in August, 
1760, told them that "no part whatever of their lands joining to the forts should be 
taken from them ; nor any English people be permitted to settle upon them," without their 
consent, and being paid therefor. These military permits were generally issued by Col. 
Bouquet, who commanded at Fort Pitt in 1762-'3, &c., and by Capt. Edmondstone ; and 
the king's proclamation of October, 1763, referred to hereafter, wore the semblance of 
forbidding them. See a reference to Col. Bouquet's proclamation of 1762, in a subse- 
quent note (6). These royal and military flourishes of supreme regard for Indian sov- 
ereignty had very much the consequence of the modern doctrine of " non-intervention," 
yiz — to encourage irresponsible individuals to violate it ; the "poor Indian" being the 
victim in the one case, as the honest settler is in the other. 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 83 

South-Western Pennsylvania. And it is a well-ascertaiued fact that 
the earliest of this class of settlements, for homes and subsistence, 
were in what is now Fayette County. This was the result of several 
co-operating causes, some of which have been alluded to in a pre- 
ceding sketch. The great abundance of game^ the general impu- 
nity from Indian aggression, the fertility of the land, its fine springs 
and water-courses ; but, above all, its short and easy access from 
the Atlantic slope by Braddock's road ; — these were the combined 
causes, which now near a century ago, planted all over our county 
territory, in almost every valley, whether large or small, in both 
mountain and lowland, the seeds of a rude but hardy civilization. 

Although the French were expelled from this region in 1758, 
yet the Indians were not quieted until 1764 ; so long did it 
require for the waves raised by the storm of '54-'5 to subside. 
This was effected by two very dissimilar agencies -^ conciliatory 
intercourse, and the military expeditions of Colonels Bouquet 
and Bradstreet, of that and the previous years. The reduction 
of Canada had led to hopes of peace with the Ohio Indians, 
but French influence was still at work. Added to this, the 
progress of the English in their career of conquest, and the 
establishment of lines of Forts all over the Indian territory, 
alarmed the natives, and led to that powerful Indian confederacy 
for war and rapine, designated in the bloody annals of that period 
as Poniiac's War, — planned and executed by that Napoleon of sav- 
age warfare. This was in 1763 ; and while it raged, " the frontiers 
of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland were overrun by scalp- 
ing parties, marking their way with blood and devastation." I^ear- 
ly all the English forts — Detroit, Niagara, Presque Isle, Le Bceuf, 
Venango, Pitt, Ligonier, &c., were vigorously attacked. And it 
was not until the decisive but costly victory of Bouquet, at Bushy 
run, between Ligonier and Pitt, and his bloodless subjugation of 
the Indians on the Aluskingum in the ensuing year, that peace and 
safety were restored. Although our county territory enjoyed its 
usual impunity during these bloody years — the inhabitants never 
flying, as they had to do from neighboring territory — yet the terror 
which was inspired prevented the influx of settlers. But when this 
barrier was removed, the tide of immigration rolled in with rapid 
and steadily-augmenting force, so that 1765 may be set down as the 
era of the settlement of Fayette county. 

The first settlers, almost without an exception, came from the 
frontier counties of Virginia and Maryland, chiefly from the for- 
mer. The events in this region, of the preceding French War, 



84 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

liad, more than any knowledgo of the boundaries, served to cre- 
ate the general belief, among the people of those counties, that this 
was Virginia territory. Yet it may be assumed that the first set- 
tlers came, without knowing, or caring to know, whether this belief 
was well founded or not. They knew they were coming into that 
vast and perilous, but fertile domain denominated the West, where 
land was cheap, and liberty as exuberant as the soil. They had per- 
haps heard that Virginia claimed all the West, from the then unde- 
fined Western limits of Maryland and Pennsylvania to the Missis- 
sippi, and from the Lakes on the North, to 36° 30' on the South; 
and supposed that the only adverse jurisdiction was that of the 
Indians — for as yet there existed here no organized government — 
no officers of the law. Although nominally embraced within Cum- 
berland county, Pennsylvania, or Augusta county, Virginia, yet, as 
the county-semt of the former was Carlisle, and of the latter Stan- 
ton, with vast mountain wastes intervening, these dependencies 
were too remote to be reached by the civil arm : and for a while the 
settlers were unheeded and unmolested by the government of either 
colony. Hence the tide flowed fast and free. Says a letter from 
"Winchester, Va., dated April 30, 1765 — "The frontier inhabitants 
of this colony and Maryland are removing fast over the Allegheny 
Mountains in order to settle and live there." And Geo. Croghan, 
the Deputy Indian Agent, under date of Fort Pitt, May 24, 1766, 
says, "as soon as the peace was made last year [by Col. Bouquet,] 
contrary to our engagements to them (the Indians) a number of our 
people came over the Great Mountain and settled at Redstone 
creek, and upon the Monongahela, before they had given the coun- 
try to the King their Father." Concurrent with this is all the tes- 
timony of that period. And so imposing did these settlements soon 
become, that they threatened to bring both the Governments and 
people of Pennsylvania and Virginia into trouble with the Indians. 
For this reason, and this alone, they now attract the notice of the 
civil and military powers. 

After the definitive treaty of peace between France and Eng- 
land, signed at Paris, in February, 1763, which terminated the French 
War, had given to England, Canada and the Floridas, and ended 
the French power and possessions on the American Continent, 
except in Louisiana, England began to make a great show of care 
for the Indians. On the 7th of October of that year, the King issued 
a proclamation regulating the bounds and affairs of his newly 
acquired possessions, and dealing out, in large profusion, his ten- 
der regard for the Indian tribes ; — declaring that they must not be 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 85 

molested in their hunting-grounds, and forbidding any governor 
or commander-in-chief, in any colony, to grant warrants of survey, 
or patents, for any lands beyond the heads of rivers which fall into 
the Atlantic, or which had been ceded by the Indians. This was 
an interdict to all settlements and surveys in what is now South- 
Western Pennsylvania, as well as in all the West Yet, as its viola- 
tions were visited by no specified penalties, it was disregarded by 
settlers, and even, to some extent, by the Government of Virginia, 
though never by that of Pennsylvania. It was by some of the best 
men in the "Old Dominion," even by Washington,* looked upon 
as a mere ruse, or pretence, to keep down or quiet the apprehensions 
of the natives. The}'-, however, did not so regard it. They claimed 
its enforcement, and were as clamorous and tenacious of their 
reserved rights to their lands and hunting-courses as has been the 
Virginia of the present century for the doctrines of the " Reso- 
lutions of '98," and threatened resistance as vociferously as did 
the chivalry of Carolina in 1832. It was the opinion of those most 
conversant with the Indians, among whom were the British Com- 
mander-in-Chief in America, General Gage, Sir William Johnston, 
the Indian Agent General and his Deputy, Croghan, that unless the 
intruding settlers were speedily removed, a general Indian war would 
be the inevitable result. Indeed, it was to the actual and threat- 
ened encroachments upon their lands in this region, by the English, 
that General Gage attributed the loss of the Indian's affections in 
1754-55, which led them to throw themselves into the arms of the 
French for protection, and brought on the disasters of those years, 
and subsequent hostilities. A remedy was imperatively demanded. 
The documentary history of 1765-'6-'7, indeed, of all that decade, 
speaks of no other settlements in Western Pennsylvania, or the 
West generally, than those within, or immediately bordering upon, 
the Monongahela, upon Cheat, upon the Yough, the Turkey-foot 
and Redstone ; — the first and last being the most prominent, and 
the last the most extensive, covering all the interior settlements 
about Uniontown. George's creek settlers were referred to Cheat; 
those about Gist's to the Yough; while Turkey-foot took in all the 
mountain districts. All these settlements seem to have been nearly 
cotemporaneous ; those on the Redstone and the Monongahela bor- 
der being perhaps the earliest, those on the Yough and Turkey- 
foot the latest, while those of George's creek and Cheat occupy an 



5 See his letter to Colonel Wm. Crawford, dated 21st Sept., 1767, copied into subse- 
quent Sketch of "Washington in Fayette" — Chap. XIV. 



86 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

intermediate date, blending with all the others. They all range 
from 1763 to 1768, inclusive. 

The earliest efforts to dispossess, or drive off these early settlers, 
were of a military character.* In June, 1766, Captain Alexander 
Mackay, commanding a party of the 42d Regiment, was sent from 
Fort Pitt by Major Murray, the commandant there, to Redstone 
creek, at which place, meaning doubtless Fort Burd, he, on the 
22d of that month, issues " to all whom it may concern," a Notice, 
stating that the commander-in-chief, " out of compassion to your 
ignorance, before he proceeds to extremity," had sent him there to 
collect them together, inform them of their lawless behavior, and 
to order them all to return to their several provinces without delay, 
upon pain of having their goods and merchandise made lawful prize 
by the Indians, of having their persons and estates put out of the 
pale of protection ; and if they disobeyed, or remained, of being 
driven from the lands they occupy by an armed force. 

This martial demonstration was quickly followed by proclama- 
tions from the civil arm. On the 31st of July, 1766, Governor Fau- 
quier, of Virginia, made proclamation of like requirements and 
penalties. And on the 23d of September, Governor Penn issues 
a similar fulmination, wherein he specially forbids "all his Majes- 
ty's subjects of this, or any other province, or colony, from making 
any settlements, or taking possession of lands, hy marking trees, or 
otherwise, beyond the limits of the last Indian purchase [that of 
1754 at Albany as subsequently restricted] within this province, 
upon pain of the severest penalties of the law, and of being excluded 
from the jyrivilege of securing stick settlements should the lands, where 
they are made, be hereafter purchased of the Indians." 

Both these proclamations are declared to have been made by vir- 
tue of instructions from his Majesty, given in October, 1765, from 
which it is inferred that the settlements had become alarming to 



* Even before the King's proclamation of Oct. 1763, Col. Henry Bouquet, then com- 
manding at Fort Pitt, had, in the latter part of 17G2, issued a proclamation forbidding 
" any of his majesty's subjects to sellle or hunt to the west of the Allegheny mountains, 
on any pretence whatever, unless upon leave in icriling from the General or the Governors 
of their i-espective provinces produced to the commander at Fort Pitt," requiring all 
such persons to be seized, and sent, with their horses and effects, to Fort Pitt, there to 
be tried by court-martial and punished accordingly. Though often violated, we read of 
no case of seizure or punishment. The policy of this period was by fair pretences, to 
counteract the insinuations of the French, that the English were really seeking to sup- 
plant, not to protect the Indians, in the possession of their lands. Hence these repeated 
"springes to catch wood-chucks." 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 87 

the Indians, or rather the provincial authorities, so early in that, or 
in the previous year, as to have reached the royal councils at that 
date. Indeed, Governor Fauquier writes to Governor Penn, in 
December, 1766, that he had issued two previous proclamations of 
like import, but that all had been disregarded. Governor Penn, 
however, says, in January, 1767, that the efibrts had been partially 
successful, that many families had withdrawn, but some had since 
returned. 

This co-operative action by the two Governors, seems to have 
been rendered necessary by the unsettled state of the boundaries 
between the two provinces. So thought Governor Penn ; and Gov- 
ernor Fauquier joined in the eiibrt very cordially, but without inti- 
mating any claim, on the part of Virginia, to the territory intruded 
upon. Its value had not yet been weighed — the horns of the strife 
were not yet grown. 

Despite all these threats and warnings, the current of intrusive 
settlement still rolled on, expanding with time, and growing stronger 
by resistance. In the mean time the Indians are becoming more 
and more restive and complaining, especially those of the tribes 
owning the lands, who had their habitations and rovings at some 
distance off: for, as is often the case with civilized men, those most 
remotely concerned utter the earliest and loudest complaints. The 
settlers generally contrived to keep themselves at peace with the 
Indians here, trading and hunting with them, and even buying set- 
tlement rights from them. This was not an unfrequent mode of 
acquiring rights to squat upon some of the choicest lands. Indeed, 
nearly all the earliest settlers resorted to it, — Gist, the Browns, and 
others already named. And it is said that the ancestral Provance 
in this way got possession of Provance's Bottom, and James Har- 
rison of the lands on Brown's run, surveyed in the names of John 
and Robert Harrison, including where James Wilson now resides ; 
also the Michael Debolt and Adam Sholly tracts, on Catt's run, 
now owned by David Johnson and James S. Rohrer, late George 
Rider. These, and many others of like origin, were purchased and 
settled about 1760. By the Indian treaties made between that year 
and 1765, they bound themselves not to sell lands to any others 
than the King, or the provincial proprietors, an obligation which 
was not, perhaps, always kept inviolate. Such purchases had no 
validity as titles ; they only enabled the purchasers to acquire there- 
by, and by their subsequent improvements thereon, some of the 
best lands. They gave a kind of conventional right, and were 
looked upon as a grade higher than mere " tomahawk settlements." 



88 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

This iu creasing contact and intercourse of pioneer settlers with 
the Indians led, as might he expected, to many disorders; and as 
the jealousies of the latter grew stronger, occasional personal con- 
flicts, and even homicides, occurred, which added to the animosi- 
ties by the whites, and to the causes of complaint by the natives. 
Many Indians were killed on the frontiers of Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania, and occasionally a white trader or hunter met a corre- 
sponding fate. But within the territory of Fayette few such out- 
rages are known to have been perpetrated. Of these was the mur- 
der of "Bald Eagle," on the Monongahela,' the killing of Indian 
Stephen at or near Stewart's Crossings,^ and the shooting, and 
burning the cabin of the two stranger hunters and settlers near 
Mendenhall's dam, on the Burnt Cabin fork of Dunlap's creek.^ 
When this case occurred is not so certainly known, but the two 



' " Bald Eagle" was an inoffensive old Delaware warrior. He was on intimate terms 
with the early settlers, with whom he hunted, fished and visited. He was well-known 
along our Monongahela border, up and down which he frequently passed in his canoe- 
Somewhere up the river, probably about the mouth of Cheat, he was killed — by whom, 
and on what pretence, is unknown. His dead body, placed vipri^ht in his canoe, with a 
piece of corn-bread in his clenched teeth, was set adrift on the river. The canoe came 
ashore at Provance's Bottom, where the familiar old Indian was at once recognized by 
the wife of William Yard Provance, who wondered he did not leave his canoe. On clo- 
ser observation, she found he was dead. She had him decently buried on the Fayette 
shore, near the early residence of Pi,obert McClean, at what was known as McClean's 
Ford. This murder was regarded, both by whites and Indians, as a great outrage, and 
the latter made it a prominent item in their list of unavenged grievances. 

^ This offence was committed by one Samuel Jacobs, aided and abetted by one John 
Ingman, an "indented servant" of Capt. Wm. Crawford — probably a negro slave. The 
provocation and other circumstances of the case are unknown. The case acquired impor- 
tance from the fact that the Governor of Virginia, contrary to the claim ^f that province 
to the territory embracing the locality of the killing, had sent one of the offenders back 
from Virginia to Pennsylvania to be tried for the offence. — See "Boundary Controversy." 

^ This case, as related by Joseph Mendenhall, an old soldier, and settler at the place 
known as Mendenhall's Dam, in Menallen township, was thus: — About three and a half 
miles west of Uniontown, on the south side of the State, or Heaton Road, which leads 
from the Poor-House, through New Salem, &c., and within five or six rods of the road 
(on land now of Joshua Woodward) are the remains of an old clearingoi about one-fourth 
of an acre, and within it the remains of an old chimney. Two or three rods south-east- 
ward is a small spring, the drain of which leads off westward into the "Burnt Cabin 
fork" of Dunlap's or Nemacolin's creek ; and still further south, some four or five rods 
is the old trail, or path called Dunlap's road, which we have heretofore traced. The story 
is, that in very early times — perhaps about 1767, two men came over the mountains by 
this path to hunt, &c., and began an improvement at this clearing, and put up a small 
cabin upon it. While asleep in their cabin, some Indians came to it, and shot them, and 
then set fire to the cabin. Their names are unknown. So far as known, this is the only 
case of the kind that ever occurred within our county limits. 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 89 

Indians were killed in 1766. Great efforts were made to apprehend 
and punish the offenders, but except as to an alleged accomplice in 
the case of Stephen, they were fruitless. "At this," writes Gover- 
nor Fauquier, "I am not surprised, for I have found by experience 
that it is impossible to bring any body to justice for the murder of 
an Indian, who takes shelter among our back inhabitants, among 
whom it is looked upon as a meritorious action, and they are sure 
of being protected." 

The Indian murmurs grew louder, and their threats of vengeance 
more earnest and alarming. So far as concerned Pennsylvania, the 
great burden of complaint was the settlements upon their lands 
along the Monongahela, Redstone, the Youghiogheny and Cheat. 
They complained also of the murder of their people. And to these 
the more sober and discreet of their tribes added, as a distinct griev- 
ance, the increasing corruption of the young men and warriors by 
Rum. They had, however, thus early learned to discriminate be- 
tween the people of the two rival colonies, and charged nearly all 
their grievances to the people of Virginia. But, as the localities 
were in Pennsylvania, it behooved the Penn Government to devise 
and execute a remedy for the wrongs complained of, so as thereby 
to prevent the savage retaliation which impended over the border 
inhabitants. 

In the summer of 1767, another military effort was made to 
remove the settlers by the garrison at Fort Pitt, but as no other 
punishment ensued than a temporary removal, no sooner was the 
soldiery withdrawn than the settlers returned with reinforcements. 

The running of Mason & Dixon's line, our Southern boundary, 
in 1767, showed that the new settlements were all within Pennsyl- 
vania; and Virginia, under the Governorships of Fauquier andBote- 
tourt, did not pretend to gainsay it. In January, 1768, Governor 
Penn called the special attention of his Assembly to this newly 
ascertained jurisdiction, and after rehearsing the fruitless efforts 
hitherto made to remove the settlers, invoked their aid to devise a 
remedy for the alleged wrongs, and thus, if possible, avert the 
threatened war. The Assembly appear to have been as badly fright- 
ened as the Governor. A perusal of the historical memoirs of the 
period does not lead to the conclusion that the danger was either 
very apparent or very imminent. JSTevertheless, the Governor and 
Assembly go to work, and enact a most terrifying law to drive off 
the settlers. It is dated February 3d, 1768. After reciting that 
" many disorderly people, in violation of his Majesty's proclamation, 
have presumed to settle upon lands not yet purchased from the Indi- 



90 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

ans, to their damage and great dissatisfaction, which may be attend- 
ed with dangerous and fatal consequences to the peace and safety 
of this province," it proceeded to enact that if any settlers after 
being required to remove themselves and families, by personal 
notice or proclamation sent to them, should not so remove within 
thirty days thereafter; or, if after having removed, they should 
return ; or, if any should so settle after such notice, every such per- 
son " being thereof legally convicted by their own confession, or 
the verdict of a jury, shall suffer death without benefit of clergy." 
And if any persons thereafter should enter upon such unpurchased 
lands, to make surveys, or should cut down, or mark trees thereon, 
" every person so offending shall forfeit and pay, for every such 
offence, the sum of fifty pounds, and suffer three months imprison- 
ment without bail, or mainprize," And, to make trials more griev- 
ous, and convictions more certain, the offenders were to be taken 
to Philadelphia, and there tried by courts and juries of that 
county. 

This law savors more of the fourteenth than of the eighteenth 
century ; and, as might have been expected, its sanguinary charac- 
ter rendered it inefficient — a mere brutem fulmen. Its only effect 
was to increase the irritations between the settlers and the Indians, 
and to ease the treasury of some of its funds, to pay for sending 
sundry persons and proclamations among the settlers to warn 
them off. 

There were, however, specially exempted from the operations of 
this law, all settlers, past, present or future, upon the main, or army 
roads to Fort Pitt, or in the neighborhood of that post, by virtue 
of military permits, and settlers in George Croghan's settlement, 
"above the said fort." These exemptions saved many of our set- 
tlers, along Braddock's and Burd's roads, and around Fort Burd, 
from the terrors of the law. If others feared, yet they fared no 
worse than these. 

In February, 1768, Governor Penn commissioned the Rev. John 
Steele, of Carlisle, a Presbyterian clergyman of some celebrity, 
and three other citizens of Cumberland county, to visit the obnox 
ious settlements, distribute proclamations embodying the bloody 
act, and warn the settlers to quit. These envoys set out early in 
March, and traveled by way of Fort Cumberland and Braddock's 
road. Our readers will pardon us for copying their Report entire : 

"April 2d, 1768. 
""We arrived at the settlement on Bedstone on the 23d day of 
March. The people having heard of our coming, had appointed a 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 91 

meeting among themselves on the 24th, to consult what measures 
to take. We took advantage of this meeting, read the Act of 
Assembly and Proclamation — explaining the law and giving the 
reasons of it as well as we could, and used our endeavors to per- 
suade them to comply; alleging to them that it was the most 
probable method to entitle them to favor with the Honorable Pro- 
prietors when the land was purchased. 

''After lamenting their distressed condition, they told us the 
people were not fully collected ; but they expected all would attend 
on the Sabbath following, and then they would give us an answer. 
They, however, affirmed that the Indians were very peaceable, and 
seemed sorry that they were to be removed, and said they appre- 
hended the English intended to make war upon the Indians, as 
they were moving off their people from the neighborhood. 

" We labored to persuade them that they were imposed upon by 
a few straggling Indians; that Sir William Johnston, who had 
informed our Government, must be better acquainted with the mind 
of the Six Nations, and that they were displeased with the white 
people's settling on their unpurchased lands. 

" On Sabbath, the 27th of March, a considerable number attended 
(their names are subjoined,) and most of them told us they were 
resolved to move off, and would petition your Honor for a prefer- 
ence in obtaining their improvements when a purchase was made. 
While we were conversing we were informed that a number of 
Indians were come to Indian Peter's. We, judging it might be 
subservient to our main design that the Indians should be present, 
while we were advising the people to obey the law, sent for them. 
They came, and, after sermon, delivered a speech, with a string of 
wampum, to be transmitted to your Honor. Their speech was — 
'Ye are come, sent by your great men, to tell these people to go 
away from the land, which ye say is ours; and we are sent by our 
great men, and are glad we have met here this day. We tell 
you, the white people must stop, and we stop them till the treaty, 
and when George Croghan and our great men talk together, we 
will tell them what to do.' The Indians were from Mingo town, 
about eighty miles from Redstone [a little below Steubenville]. 

" After this the people were more confirmed that there was no 
danger of war. They dropped the design of petitioning, and said 
they would wait the issue of the treaty. Some, however, declared 
they would move off. We had sent a messenger to Cheat River 
and to Stewart's Crossings of Youghiogheny with several pro- 
clamations, requesting them to meet us at Gist's place as most 



92 THE MONONGAHELA OP OLD. [CH. VI. 

central for both settlements. On the 30th of March, about thirty 
or forty men met us there. We proceeded, as at Redstone, reading 
the Act of Assembly and a Proclamation, and endeavored to con- 
vince them of the necessity and reasonableness of quitting the 
unpurchased land; but to no purpose. They had heard what the 
Indians had said at Redstone, and they reasoned in the same man- 
ner, declaring they had no apprehensions of a war, that they would 
attend the treaty, and take their measures accordingly. Many 
severe things were said of Mr. Croghan ; and one Lawrence Har- 
rison treated the law and our Government with too much dis- 
respect. 

" On the 31st of March we came to the Great Crossings of 
Youghiogheny, and being informed by one Speer that eight or ten 
families lived in a place called the Turkey Foot, we sent some 
proclamations thither by said Speer, as we did to some families nigh 
the Crossings of Little Yough, judging it unnecessary to go 
amongst them. 

" It is our opinion that some will move off in obedience to the 
law; that the greatest part wdll await the treaty, and if they find 
the Indians are indeed dissatisfied, we think the whole will be per- 
suaded to remove. The Indians coming to Redstone, and deliver- 
ing their speech, greatly obstructed our design. 

"We are, &c. 

John Steel, 
John Allison, 
Christopher Lemes, 
James Potter. 
" To the Honorable John Penn, Esquire, 

Lieutenant-Governor, &c., &c.." 

" The Indians names who came to Redstone, viz: 

Captains Haven, Hornets, Mygog Wigo, Nogawach, Strikebelt, 
Pouch, Gilly and Slewbells. 

The names of the inhabitants near Redstone : 

John Wiseman, Henry Prisser, William Linn, William Colvin, 
John Vervalson, Abraham Tygard (Teagarden,) Thomas Brown, 
Richard Rodgers, John Delong, Peter Young, George Martin, 
Thomas Downs, Andrew Gidgeon (Gudgel,) Philip Sute (Shute,) 
James Crawford, John Peters, Henry Swats, James McClean, Jesse 
Martin, Adam Hatton, John Verval, Jr., James Waller, Thomas 
Douter (Douthitt,) Captain Coburn, Michael Hooter, Andrew Linn, 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 93 

Gabriel Conn, John Martin, Hans Cack (Cook,) Daniel McKay, 
Josias Crawford, one Provence (William Yard, or John William.)^" 

Names of some who met us at Guesse's {^Gist's'] place. 

One Bloomfield, (Thomas or Empson Brovvnfield,) James Lyne, 
(Lynn or Lyon,) Ezekiel Johnson, Thomas Guesse (Gist,) Charles 
Lindsay, James Wallace (Waller,) Richard Harrison, Phil. Sute 
(Shute,) Jet. (Jediah) Johnson, Henry Burkon (Burkham,) Law- 
rence Harrison, Ralph Higgenbottom.^" 

Names of the people at Turkey Foot : 

Henry Abrams," Ezekiel Dewitt, James Spencer, Benjamin Jen- 
nings, John Cooper, Ezekiel Hickman, John Enslow, Henry Enslow, 
Benjamin Pursley." 

In a supplemental report to the Governor by Mr. Steel, he says : 
"The people at Redstone alleged that the removing of them from 
the unpurchased lands was a contrivance of the gentlemen and 
merchants of Philadelphia, that they might take rights for their 
improvements when a purchase was made. In confirmation of 
this they said that a gentleman of the name of Harris, and another 
called Wallace, with one Friggs, a pilot, spent a considerable time 
last August in viewing the lands and creeks thereabouts. I am of 
opinion, from the appearance the people made, and the best intelli- 
gence we could obtain, that there are but about an hundred and fifty 
families in the different settlements of Redstone, Youghiogheny and 
Cheat.'' AVe suppose this estimate included all the settlers in what 
is now Fayette county and Turkey Foot. The names of Harris, 
Wallace and Frigg do not appear in our early land titles, so far as 
we know. They were perhaps agents for others. 

The treaty referred to so often in the foregoing report was to be 
held at Fort Pitt in the ensuing April and May, by George Croghan, 



10 Several of these persons resided at considerable distances from the mouth of Redstone, 
or from Gist's — as Pliilip Shute and James McClean, who lived in N. Union township, near 
the base of Laurel Hill ; Thomas Douthitt on the tract where Uniontown now is ; Captain 
Coburn some ten miles southeast of New Geneva; Gabriel Conn probably on George's 
creek, near Woodbridgetown. The Provances settled on Provance's Bottom, near Mason- 
town, and on ihc other side of tlie river, at the mouth of Big Whiteley. The Brownfields 
located south and southeast of Uniontown. Ralph Higgenbottom resided on the Waynes- 
burg road, in Menallen township, a little west of the Sandy Hill Quaker graveyard. The 
others, so far as we know, resided near the places to which they came. It is singular that 
the Commissioners did not visit the upper Monongahcla, or George's creek and Cheat 
settlements. We infer that they were discouraged by their ill success at Redstone. 

" Grandfather of Ex-Judge Abrams, of Brownsville. 



94 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

Deputy Indian Agent, with the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawnese, 
and other tribes of western Indians. It came off accordingly. 
Pennsylvania bad two commissioners in attendance, Messrs. John 
Allen and Joseph Sbippen. Its purposes were to learn the minds 
of the Indians, and, by presents and fair speeches, to appease their 
irritations on account of the intrusions upon their lands and the 
killing of several of their people by the whites. Between 1000 and 
2000 Indians attended, upwards of <£1000 worth of presents 
distributed, and sundry talks, belts and wampums delivered. 
Although not so recorded, yet doubtless many of the obnoxious 
settlers were also in attendance, plying the requisite influences to 
accomplish their purposes. Tbe only complaint uttered by the 
Indians against the settlements was by a Six Nations' Chief, who 
said — " Some of them are made directly on our war path, leading 
to our enemy's country, and we do not like it." Tbe numerous 
other Indian speakers were silent as to this grievance. Indeed 
the Pennsylvania Commissioners manifested much more anxiety 
than the Indians, to have the settlers driven off; complaining most 
vehemently of the Indians' interference a^id speech at Redstone, as 
related by Messrs. Steel and others ; and remonstrating against 
their breach of faith in selling their lands to others than the Pro- 
prietaries. So palpable was this play of cross purposes between 
the Indians and the Government agents, that when the latter solici- 
ted the former to send some of their chief men to the settlements 
to co-operate with two white men selected by them, for the purpose 
of again warning off the settlers, the representatives of the Six 
jSTations, after at first consenting to do so, upon "sober second 
thought" refused. 

They put their refusal upon two grounds : first, tbat their dele- 
gated powers did not extend to this extra duty ; (a precedent for 
modern *•' strict constructionists,") and second, that they didn't like 
to engage in the business of driving ofl' the white people, believing 
it most proper that the English should do that kind of work them- 
selves. Kayashuta, an old Seneca (Six Nations') chief made the 
following very sensible speech to the Penn agents, on this head : — 
" We were, all of us, much disposed to comply with your request, 
and expected it would have been done without difiiculty, but I now 
find that not only the Indians appointed by us, but all our other 
young men are very unwilling to carry a message from us to the white 
people, ordering them to remove from our lands. They say they 
would not choose to incur the ill will of those people; for, if they 
should be now removed, they will hereafter return to their settle- 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 95 

ments, when tlie English have purchased the country from us ; and 
we shall be very unhappy if, by our conduct towards them at this 
time, we shall give them reason to dislike us, and treat us in an 
unkind manner when they again become our neighbors." A rare 
example of prudent forecast and wise moderation. 

This brought to an abrupt termination all efforts to enforce the 
non-intrusion law. Henceforth the settlers were let alone. But 
upon a review of these and other schemes to dispossess the early 
settlers in our country, while we do not condemn the anxiety of 
the Government to preserve inviolate the faith of Indian treaties, 
we must censure its too easy alarm, and too vindictive efforts and 
enactments. These, and the occurrences at this Fort Pitt " treaty " 
produced two very natural consequences. First, they served to 
alienate the affections of the settlers from the Pennsylvania Gov- 
ernment, and hence to carry them the more devotedly into the 
embraces of Virginia in the Boundary Controversy which now soon 
begun ; and second, they contributed, with other co-operating in- 
fluences, to promote and maintain a good feeling between our early 
settlers and the Indians; which, as we have more than once 
remarked, was a striking characteristic of our early history. 

The speech of the old Seneca chief, which we have quoted, fore- 
shadowed coming events. The Indians' title to the lands intruded 
upon was soon to cease forever; and although they were not to be 
forcibly removed, as has been the rule in modern times, yet soon 
henceforth they were to become mere tenants by sufferance, their 
camp-fires gradually to go out, and fences spring up across their 
war paths and hunting courses. 

ISTo doubt the project, so necessary to peace and the fulfillment 
of "manifest destiny," of purchasing this region of country from 
the native proprietors, had been agitated for some time; and the 
Indians looked to its accomplishment as anxiously as did the whites. 
It will be remembered that all of Western Pennsylvania belonged 
to the Mingoes or Six Nations of Indians, and to their allies and 
dependants, or "nephews," the Shawnese and Delawares ; com- 
posing then a numerous and powerful body, now almost extinct. 
The seat of their power and their chief home was in Western ISqw 
York. There, at Fort Stanwix, (Rome,) near the head of the 
Mohawk Valley, a Grand Council or Conference of the Six Nations, 
convened under the auspices of Sir William Johnston, was soon to 
assemble to agree upon a boundary between their dominions and 
the settlements of the Middle Colonies. Thither the tribes repaired 
in September, 1768, and to their councils came Gov. Penn and his 



96 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

agents, and representatives from Virginia and New York, to 
negotiate and make purchases. The result was that in November 
the Indians made large cessions to those Colonies, the Penns pro- 
curing a deed from the Six Nations, for the consideration of X10,000, 
conveying to them all of South-western, and much of Northern and 
Middle Pennsylvania. This was the first treaty of Fort Stanwix, 
in contradistinction to that of 1784, at which the State bought out 
all the remaining Indian title within her limits ; the Delawares and 
Shawnese assenting to it by the treaty of Fort Mcintosh, (Beaver,) 
in 1785. Their express assent to the cession of '68 was never given, 
but they acquiesced. 

The way was now clear to settlers and for the acquisition of rights 
to land.i- The tide of immigration now rolled high and unresisted ; 
and when on the 3d of April, 1769, the Proprietaries' Land Office 
was opened for receiving applications for lands in the "New Pur- 
chase," there was a perfect rush. It was found necessary to put 
them in a box as received, and then, after being shaken or well 
stirred up, to draw them out, lottery fashion, and number them as 
drawn, so as to determine preferences where there was more than 
one applicant for the same land. Not many such collisions 
occurred, and after August this plan was abandoned, and warrants 
substituted. In the first month the number of applications exceeded 
3200. The surveys in what is now Fayette county, then Cumber- 
land, began August 22, 1769, by Archibald McClean and Moses 
McClean, elder brothers of Col. Alexander McClean, who was with 
them, and succeeded them as Deputy Surveyor, in 1772. In the 
remaining five months and ten days of that year (1769) seventy 
official surveys were executed upon Fayette territory, and in 1770 
eighty more besides great numbers, by the same surveyors, in adja- 
cent parts of Westmoreland, and a few in Washington, Allegheny 
and Somerset, which are found entered in our first Survey Books. 



1- The only instance we find of a direct grant of right to land in Fayette (other than the 
military permits and army road settlements) prior to April 3, 17G9, is, what is called a "grant 
of preference."' dated January 22, 1768, given by Governor Penn, for 500 acres, to Hugh 
Crawford, who had been "Interpreter and conductor of the Indians" in the running of the 
western part of Mason «&. Dixon's Line, in 1767. The order of survey was withheld until 
January, 1770, in which year he died, and his administrator, Wm. Graham, sold the land for 
payment of debts, by order of tiie Orphans' Court of Cumberland county, to Robert Jackson. 
This is now a part of Col. Samuel Evans' estate ; and it and one of the Gist tracts are the 
only instances in the county of a grant for more than 400 acres. We find a Hugh Crawfordt 
an Indian trader of prominence, in the Ohio country and eastward, about 1750, who was 
probably the same man. 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 97 

The number then fell off rapidly — in 1771, twelve ; in '72, fourteen ; 
in '73, eleven ; in '74, seven ; and in '75, two, when official surveys 
entirely ceased until '82 and '83, in each of which years only three were 
executed. This suspension was owing in part to the Boundary 
Controversy, and in part to the Revolution, during which the Land 
Office was substantially closed, and was not opened for new sales 
until July 1, 1784. This caused another great rush to vent the 
accumulations of the last ten years. In 1784, twenty surveys were 
executed upon Fayette lands ; in '85, two hundred and ffty-cighi ; in 
'86 one hundred and fifty, in '87 eighty-eight, in '88 sixty-two, in 
'89 twenty-eight, and in '90 nineteen, after which they progressed 
with a more equable pace, increasing somewhat after 1792. 

Despite the threats to the contrary, preferences were from the 
first given to those settlers who had made improvements on the lands 
applied for, regardless of whether they were made before or after 
the Indian purchase, except that settlements made after that pur- 
chase and before April 8, '69 were disregarded, thus discriminating 
in favor of what the Proprietors had before fiercely denounced. 
Settlements made under military •permits were also preferred. The 
price of lands in this region was £5 per 100 acres, and one penny 
per acre per year quit rent, under the Proprietary Government, and 
until 1784, when it was reduced to £3 10s. and no quit rents, but 
with interest from the date of the improvement. In 1792 the price 
was further reduced to 505. per 100 acres and interest, at which it 
continued until the flush times of 1814, &c., when it was put up to 
£10 per 100 acres and interest from date of settlement. In 1835 
the Graduating Act was passed, by which the payment of interest 
is regulated. 

On the 27th November, 1779, was passed by the Commonwealth 
"An Act for vesting the estates of the late Proprietaries (the Penns) 
in this Commonwealth." The late Chief Justice Tilghman called 
this "a high-handed measure — an instance that might made right,'' 
but it was a necessary act of Revolution. The State paid them 
therefor .£130,000 sterling in annual payments of from £15,000 to 
£20,000, without interest, beginning one year after the close of the 
Revolutionary war ; and reserved to them their private and 
manor property, which was worth perhaps £130,000 more. They 
prudently took the money, and thus confirmed the questionable 
legislation. 

Very few patents for lands, within the limits of Fayette county, 
were issued under the Proprietary Government, or before the 
7 



98 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

Revolution." For this there were several reasons ; — the scarcity of 
money — the validity, as against all but the Proprietors, of settle- 
ments, and of official surveys and returns ; but especially the uncer- 
tainty whether we were in Virginia or in Pennsylvania. Indeed 
there are, in Fayette county, many tracts of land worth from twenty 
to fifty dollars per acre, and settled from seventy to ninety years, 
which are yet unpatented. The rich reckonings of interest which 
these, from time to time, yield up to the State Treasury, make its 
insatiate coffers smile. 

Thus much we thought we might safely here say as to our land 
titles. To go further into them would be an unwarrantable digres- 
sion from our main purpose — to which we now return. 

Although the boundary troubles, the Revolutionary and subse- 
quent Indian wars until 1794, operated greatly to retard the growth 
of our settlements, still they did progress during that period, slowly, 
but steadily. Indeed during the Revolutionary war, Pennsylvania 
adopted the recommendation of Congress to States having wild 
lands, not to grant them to settlers, lest by so doing they might hinder 
enlistment. This, however, did not hinder, but only discouraged 
immigration, and postponed the lawful acquisition of titles, as 
already stated. The great hindrances to settlements here were the 
difficulties of getting here, the privations when here, and the fear 
of the Indians. This latter cause, however, had comparatively 
with other neighboring territory, little influence. No bloody Indian 
forays ever crossed our lines after '55. Our inhabitants never fled, 
except sometimes to their noteless private forts upon groundless 
alarm. Often did our sturdy yeomen and youth go over our bor- 
ders to the relief of their more exposed neighbors of Washington 



^* The only Proprietary Patents for Fayette lands wliich we know of are the following : 

John Penn, Governor, &c., to John PauU, July 7, 1770, for a tract called " Walnut Level," 
in now Nicholson township, on the river below New Geneva, sold by PauU's executors to 
Philip Pierce, owned once, in part, by Hon. John Smilic, and since by Jacob and James 
Biffle, and Thomas W. Nicholson. 

Thomas and Richard Penn to William Robertson, January 12, 1771, for a tract on or near 
Braddock's road, and on both sides of Jacob's Creek, between Lobengier's and Tinsman's 
(Snyder's) Mills, in part in Bullskin township — the scene of the old quarrels and lawsuits 
between Robertson and Ralph Clierry. 

Thomas and Richard Penn, March 2, 1771, to Doctor Hugh Mercer, of Fredericksburg, 
Virginia, (the General Hugh Mercer, of the Revolution, who fell at Princeton, N. J., Jan. 3, 
1777.) for three tracts in Bullskin township, above the Chain Bridge ford, and near Brad- 
dock's road. General Mercer's executors sold them to Col. Isaac Meason. 

In September and November, 1766, John Penn and John Penn, Jr. granted Patents for a 
number of tracts in now Wharton and H. Clay townships, and in contiguous parts of 
Somerset county, to B. Chew and Wilcocks. 



GU. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 99 

and "Westmoreland. Indeed this impunity from the terrors of the 
times conduced to our increase of population, and caused our county 
to far outstrip its neighbors in this particular. From 150 families 
in 1768, say 700 persons, our population rose in 1790 to 12,995 
free whites and 282 slaves. 

As already stated, the earliest settlers came from Virginia and 
Maryland, chiefly the fonner. About 1770-'2 a few came from the 
Eastern counties of Pennsylvania, bordering on Maryland. There 
were occasional instances before and after that period, up to '84, 
when Pennsylvania immigrants began to preponderate. The old 
settlers had, as they thought, come to Virginia territory, many of 
the better sort bringing with them their slaves and their attach- 
ments to Virginia rule and manners. In 1780 Pennsylvania passed 
her celebrated "Act for the gradual abolition of Slavery," declaring 
that all colored persons born on her soil after March 1, 1780, should 
be free, subject to such as would otherwise have been slaves, being 
servants until twenty-eight years of age, if duly registered. The 
act required a registry in the office of the Courts of all slaves. 
How many were registered by inhabitants of Fayette we do not 
certainly know, as it was until 1783 part of Westmoreland, where 
the Register is common to what is now several counties." But, 
under the Act of March, 1788, requiring a registry of those born 
of slave mothers after March 1, 1780, we find there were registered 
in Fayette, 354, between the 5th of February, '89 and January 
12th, 1839. 

The passage of this law, and its becoming a "fixed fact " about 
the same time that this was Pennsylvania territory, combined to 
induce many of our early settlers to sell out and migrate to Ken- 
tucky, which about this date had opened her charms to adventure, 
settlement and slavery. Fayette gave to that glorious State many 
of her best pioneer settlers — among whom were her Popes, her 



1^ Among the largest slave owners, as shown by the Registers, were, Pt.obert Bcale, 18 : 
Van Swearingcn, 13; William Goe, 11; Walter Brisco, 9; Margaret llutton, 9; Isaac 
Meason, 8 ; Edward Cook, 8 ; James Cross, 8 ; Nacy Brashears, 12 ; Rev. James Finley. 
8 ; Andrew Linn, 7 ; Benoni Dawson, 7 ; Sarah Hardin, 7 ; Richard Noble, 7 ; Benjamin 
Stephens, 6; James Dearth, 6; Thomas Brown, 6 ; John Stevenson, 5 ; Samuel Kincadc, 
5; Peter Laughlln, 5; Wm. McCormick, 5; John McKibben, 5; Edmond Fi'eemau. 
James Blackiston, Isaac Pierce, Augustine ]Mooi"e, Benjamin Davis, Hugh Laughlin. 
James Hammond, each 4; Providence Mountz, Margaret Vance, John Minter, Thomas 
Moore, William Harrison, Joseph Grable, Dennis Springer, John Wells, Robert Harrison 
Isaac Newman, each 3; Zachariah Connell, Mark Hardin, John Hardin, Theophilus 
Phillips, Philip Shutc, John Mason, Robert Ross, John Laughlin, Otho Brashears, Rezin 
Virgin, Jonathan Arnold, Richard Stephenson, each 2 ; and many others, one. 

I 



100 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

Rowans, her Metcalfs, her Hardins and others. The flight to 
Kentucky started from the mouth of Redstone in Kentucky boats, which 
landed at Limestone (Maysville). This current was kept up during 
the decade of 1780-'90, and to some extent afterwards; but now it 
began to blend with another current which ran into the cheap and 
tempting plains of Ohio, a current which continued to flow with 
increasing force and breadth during the residue of that century, and 
for many years afterwards ; and indeed until after a protracted 
struggle she was completely supplanted in the affections of our 
people by Illinois and Iowa. 

These early removals to Kentucky brought to our county over- 
powering numbers of settlers from Eastern Pennsylvania and l!Tew 
Jersey, who availed themselves of the opportunity to buy out the 
improvements of the settlers upon easy terms. Of this class of 
new settlers were the Friends, or Quakers, who settled about 
Brownsville, and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians generally. Many, 
however, of the Friends, especially those earliest here, came from 
Berkeley and Frederick counties in Virginia. Of such were the 
Beesons, who were here as early as 1766-'7. There were also 
Presbyterians here before 1770 — among them Rev. James Finley, 
who took up the lands where his grandchildren, Robert, Ebenezer 
and Eli now reside, as early as 1772, having bought out one Nace 
Thompson. The Presbyterian settlers located generally on Dunlap's 
creek, and between Redstone and the Yough — a few scattering in 
other places. The Rev. John McMillan, in his journal of his tour 
from the Valley of Virginia to Southwest Pennsylvania, in 1775, 
speaks of having lodged one night at "one Coburn's" — probably 
the place where the first Monongalia election was held;'* then, ten 
miles distant, he came to and lodged at Col. Wilson's,'^ (now ISTew 
Geneva,) and preached at " Mount Moriah."" Thence he went to 
John Armstrong's, on Muddy creek — thence to John McKibben's, 
on Dunlap's creek, (the old Judge Breading place, now George P]. 



^ See "Boundary Controversy" — Chap. IX. 

'® See Memoir of Col. George Wilson among "Early Settlers," and " Boundary Con- 
troversy " — Chapters VII. and IX. 

1' This was, and is a Presbyterian church ; and is where there is now a small frame 
•meeting house, once used as a school house, originally part of the old Caldwell tract of 
land, now Lee Tate, adjoining the late James C. Ramsay's, in Springhill township, about 
two miles southeast of New Geneva. The lot, four acres, (including a spring) on which 
it stands, was conveyed to Col. George Wilson and John Swearingen, (father of Captviiu 
'Van Swearingen,) as trustees of the church, by Joseph Caldwell, by deed, (of record in 
Book A.) dated July 1, 1773, and is, perhaps, the oldest church title in the county. 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 101 

Hogg,) at both of which places he lodged and preached. Thence 
to Mr. Adams', about four miles, and preached at James Pickett's ; 
thence, about five miles, to David Allen's. Mr. Adams was Robert 
Adams, Esq., a Presbyterian Elder, who lived on the Solomon Colley 
place, seven miles west of Uniontown, on the pike. David Allen's 
was where Robert Smith, Esq. now resides, in Franklin town- 
ship. James Pickett's we cannot certainly locate. From David 
Allen's he went to Col. Edward Cook's, a well known place, on 
Speer's run, north of Cookstown, and thence to Pentecost's, in 
Elizabeth township, Allegheny county, now John Torrence's, and 
thence to Chartiers, where he settled. 

And, as we have but little material for an Ecclesiastical History 
of Fayette, we may as well here insert what little we have. ,;. ' 

The Baptists were early in the field in this county, as early as 
1766-'8. They settled generally near Uniontown, on George's 
creek and Redstone, the former having for their minister, perhaps 
as early as 1769, the Rev. Isaac Sutton,^^ who founded the church 
at Uniontown, called "Great Bethel," and the one near Merritts- 
town, called "Little Bethel." He settled about two miles south 
of Uniontown, where some of his descendants still reside. Among 
his people were the Brownfields, Gaddis', &c. Among the Red- 
stone Baptists were the Linns, Colvins, &c., having for their 
minister the Rev. W. Stone. The Rev. John Corbly, of Muddy 
creek, or rather Whiteley creek, in now Greene county, whose 
wife and children (five) were killed and scalped by Indians when 
on their way to church, in 1782, was a son-in-law of old Andrew 
Linn, who settled the Linn's Mill tract — "Crab-tree bottom," on 
Redstone, near Brownsville, at a very early day, that tract being 
the first official survey in the county, made August 22, 1769. The 
Redstone Association, like the Redstone Presbytery, is the oldest 
of its kind west of the Mountains. 

The Methodists did not reach this county until some years after 
the Revolution — about the close of the last century.^^ They rapidly 



1^ The Baptist historian, Benedict, gives this honor to Elder John Sutton, a brother of 
Isaac, and who had another brother, Moses, who was a preacher. They all, we believe, 
settled in the same vicinity. There was also a Rev. James Sutton, on George's creek, 
who went West about 1790 — another brother, we presume. The George's creek Baptist 
Church at Smithfield was founded in 1780, with 34 members. 

'3 The oldest Methodist Ep. Church title in Fayette county that we can find is a deed 
from Isaac Meason to Thomas Moore, Jacob Murphy, Zach'h. Connell and Isaac Charles, 
Trustees, &c., for one acre, for a meeting house, dated May 2G, 1700: — but where it 
is — in what township, or other locality, we do not know. It is in the northern part of 



102 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

rose in numbers and influence, — their system of itinerancy, or 
circuit riding, being admirably fitted to a new country.'* They 
had preaching stations at Uniontown, Brownsville, Connellsville 
and elsewhere, at an early period of their progress. Among their 
earliest preachers and exhorters at Uniontown, and perhaps at other 
stations, were Messrs. Henry Tomlinson, "William McClelland, 
John and Thomas Chaplin and Moses Hopwood. The Rev. William 
Brownfield began his clerical labors in that Church, but his deep 
rooted Calvinism soon led him to the Baptists, for whom he has 
long labored. The Rev. Thornton Fleming, of excellent memorj^ 
was among their early preachers. 

The Protestant Methodists arose about 1829, — the Cumberland 
Presbyterians in 1833, coming here from Tennessee and Kentucky, 
where they originated about 1810. 

The Associate Reformed, or that branch of the Presbyterian 
family which adheres rigidly to Rouse's version of Psalmody, called 
by various names, have firmly occupied some ground in Fayette 
from its earliest settlement, but have not kept up with the progress 
of population. The locality of their denominational existence is 
now restricted to Dunbar and Tyrone townships, with a few mem- 
bers in contiguous localities. Among their people are, and have 
been, the Junks, Gilchrists, Byers, Parkhills, Pattersons, &c. 
The Rev. David Proudfoot was their ancient minister. Indeed, in 
early times all the Presbyterians used Rouse's version of the Psalms, 
many churches as late as 1 825-' 30. The introduction, about 1800, 
of the new, or AVatts' Psalms and Hymns, created much excite- 
ment, and caused many secessions, especially at Laurel Hill, whence 
two Meeting Houses in close contiguity. These sturdy defenders 
of the ancient faith and practice are among our best citizens. 

The Episcopal Church had numerous adherents among our 
earliest settlers, that being then the established Church of Virginia, 
from which they came. Their system being, however, the reverse 
of that of the Methodists in adaptedness to new settlements, and 



the county somewhere. The title for the Meth. Ep. Church property, Uniontown, bears 
date August C, 1791, from Jacob Beeson and wife to David Jennings, Jacob Murphy, 
Samuel Stephens, Jonathan Rowland and Peter Hook, Trustees, &c. 

*" "I believe the first Methodist Camp Meeting held in this part of Western Pennsyl- 
vania was in 1802, on Pike run, about two and a half miles from Brownsville, on the 
old Ginger Hill, or Pittsburgh Road, in Washington county. The first one in this county 
was in 1805, near Jennings' run, about two and a half miles west of Uniontown, on 
part of the old David JeDnings and James Henthorn tracts, now owned by James Veech, 
Esq. It was the largest concourse of people I ever saw." F. L. 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 103 

not having tlie missionary, or extension ingredient so well developed 
as had the Presbyterians, Baptists and some other sects, they were 
long postponed in obtaining fixed places of worship, or a regular 
administration of church ordinances. They have, however, long 
maintained churches at Brownsville and Counellsville ; and, more 
recently, at Uniontown and elsewhere. 

For a long period, — but how long, we cannot state, the Roman 
Catholics have had a chapel at Brownsville ; and within a few 
years past they have erected one at Uniontown. 

There are other religious sects among us, of whose history we 
know almost nothing. Among these are several which are confined 
almost exclusively to our German population, including the Luther- 
ans, Tunkers, or Dunkards, Mennonists, &c., some of whom date 
from a very early day.-' Besides these, in more recent times have 
arisen the Disciples, or Campbellites, the IS'ew Lights, Free Will 
Baptists, &c. We have no Unitarians, Universalists, Mormons, or 
Congregationalists. 

We regret that our materials are so scanty as not to allow us to 
refer this important branch of our early history to a separate 
sketch. As the subject relates to a "Kingdom not of this world," 
its memorials are not so accessible as are those of the rise and 
progress of temporal affairs. Indeed, when we reflect upon the 
decisive, but often unseen influence which religious faith and 
church discipline exert upon political movements and every day 
life, the dearth of materials for our ecclesiastical history is much to 
be regretted. The Rev. Doctor Smith, in his valuable work, "Old 
Redstone," has done a good work for the Presbyterian Church in 
Southwestern Pennsylvania; and we commend his example to 
the historians of other denominations. 

As the author of " Old Redstone " has well said and shown, 
nearly all our early temples were in the country, away from the noise 
and revelry of the villages, rearing their humble roofs beneath the 



-1 We believe the first meeting house for Christian worship erected within the limits 
of Fayette county, was on or near the site of the present "German Meeting House," in 
German township. It was a small log-cabin building. Its founders were known by the 
name of German Calvinists, or Lutherans. This was as early as 1770. We believe it 
is the only Church in the county having a glebe, or tract of land, attached to it. 
The Germans had also at a very early day — say 1774, a meeting house on Captain 
Philip Rogers' land, now Alfred Stewart's, near the Morgantown lload, in George's 
township. It was burnt by the woods being fired. Near its site is an ancient gi'ave- 
yard, indicated by a few moss-grown grave stones, "with shapeless sculpture decked." 
Capt. Rogers is buried there. 



104 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

shade of the oak, on some flower-decked eminence, or in some 
quiet vale, beside some noiseless spring, or prattling rill ; — fit 
localities at which to drink of the wells of the water of life, and to 
hymn the praises of the Redeemer in unison with the bird notes 
of the bushes and the deep diapason of the forest. Who, that can 
remember their attendance, in dry days or wet, in warm days or 
cold, upon these rural sanctuaries, that does not deprecate the 
modern departure from those primitive habits ; when, instead of 
people coming from the country to worship, or gossip, at edifices 
begirt with noise and stench, and made cheerless by cold recep- 
tions, the villagers rode or trudged joyously into the country, there 
to meet warm greetings, and to listen to the tidings of salvation 
wafted to their ears in a pure atmosphere, uucontaminated by the 
smell of a pig-sty, and unmixed with the cries of a dog-fight ! 
There is poetry, as well as piety, yet, in a country church and a 
country parson. 

We will not attempt a catalogue, or further description of these 
old country cathedrals. Many of them have mouldered down and 
disappeared ; and the places of others have been supplied by 
edifices of more stately structure. While, as to all but a few, the 
forest trees which sheltered and adorned them, have been cut 
away ; and, in too many instances, their worshipers have not had 
enough of the grace of taste to plant and protect a substitute. A 
treeless church is worse than an untombed grave. 

And then, the old country schools, with their puncheon floors 
and benches, and long grease-paper-glazed windows, and "out"- 
paddles, and ferrules, and beech rods, and pedagogue dominies — 
where are they ? All gone. Hallowed be their memory ! They 
were plentifully scattered among our early settlements. There is 
scarcely a neighborhood in the cis-montane part of the county, 
where some survivor of the second generation cannot point you to 
the spot where his young ideas were taught to shoot and he to play. 
And if in those days the stream of knowledge was not so much 
diffused as now, yet perhaps the current was deeper, and its fer- 
tilizing influences more durable. Be it our aim still more to 
expand it, and to deepen and purify it. 

Nor were the higher branches of education neglected by our 
ancestors. True, chartered Academies and Colleges and Union 
Schools, with all their paraphernalia of Trustees and Faculty and 
Superintendents, and Libraries and Apparatus, and Endowments, 
were unknown ; but it was not less true, that in all that imparts 
dignity and strength and a love of further acquirement, to the human 



CH. 



VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 105 



intellect, the facilities then were as ample as now. Almost every 
country preacher was then a teacher of Latin and the Mathematics — 
a branch of their calling was it for which they were often better 
qualified than many modern "professors." They seldom had a 
separate building for the purpose — their own humble cabins were 
the recitation halls, and contiguous groves the study rooms, where 
many a youth, truly ambitious of fame and usefulness, was wont 

" Inter sylvas Academi querere verum." 

We have before us a newspaper of 1794, wherein is an advertise- 
ment by Rev. James Dunlap, then the Presbyterian Pastor of 
Laurel Hill and Dunlap's Creek, afterwards President of Jefferson 
College, Pa., and William Littell, Esq., afterwards a lawyer and 
author of eminence in Kentucky, setting forth that they had opened 
a school in Franklin township," where they teach "Elocution and 
the English language grammatically, together with the Latin, 
Greek and Hebrew languages, Geometry and Trigonometry, with 
their application to Mensuration, Surveying, Gauging, &c., likewise 
Geography and Civil History, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Logic 
and Rhetoric," and where "boarding, washing, &c., may be had 
at reputable houses in the neighborhood, at the low rate of ten 
pounds ($26.67) per annum." How long this nursery of Literature 
and Science continued, we know not — probably until 1803, when 
Mr. Dunlap's accession to the College Presidency occurred. Who, 
or how many were its students we cannot tell. It was, however, 
for a while well sustained, and several of the clergy and other 
professional men who rose in this country and in the West in the 
close of the last century, there received their " learning." "^ Among 
them was the Rev. George Hill, father of Col. A. M. Hill of this 
county, who found his wife at one of the "reputable houses in the 
neighborhood" (John McClelland's) where he boarded. 

Thus deeply did our forefathers lay the foundations of that 
prosperity which we now enjoy. Take them all in all, they were 
generally men and women of whom their posterity may be proud. 
Unlike most of the proud nations of Europe, ancient and modern, 



^ We believe this was on the old Tanner farm, formerly owned by Col. Wm. Swear- 
ingen, now Charles McGlaughlin, and in Dunbar township. 

23 After his Presidency at Canonsburg, in 1811-12, and when age and infirmity had 
somewhat impaired his mental, as well as bodily vigor, Dr. Dunlap taught a Latin and 
Mathematical school at New Geneva. Among his pupils there were Samuel Evans, 
James and Thomas W. Nicholson, Stephen Wood, and David Bradford, Jr., son of 
David Bradford, Esq., of Washington, Pa., of Whiskey Insurrection celebrity. 



106 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

we have uo need of a fabulous antiquity in which to bury the mis- 
deeds of our progenitors. We may glory in the fullest and most 
authentic emblazonry of their conduct. Even those of us who do 
not boast a Fayette ancestry, will find many things in the character 
of our early settlers to command our admiration — many to attract 
our imitation ; while in a few, their errors and aberrations stand 
out as beacons to warn us that with all their heroic excellencies 
they still were men. 

It is not within our purpose, or our ability, to portray their 
character. It was that of original settlers every where — in many 
respects ; but in others it was one peculiar to the men and women 
of that age and of this country. The first settlers came here not 
merely to better their condition, but to gratify their iasle.'^* Many, 
in crossing the mountains, supposed they had passed the ultimate 
bound of that refined and conventional civilization, which to that 
class of men denominated piojieers, is too grievous to be borne. 
Rough they were, but strong. Patient of toil and privation, yet 
impatient of restraint. Poor in the wealth which engenders pride, 
but rich in expedients for substantial comfort. Fearless of danger, 
yet fearing their God. Extravagant in the nois}' sports of the 
chase, the raising, the harvest and the husking, but frugal of all 
the means of quiet, fireside enjoyment. Strong in their likes and 
dislikes, their attachments were inviolable, but their resentments 
dreadful. Yet, amid all this rudeness and horror of legal restraints, 
persons and property were generally more secure, and female 
chastity more sacred, then even now. And there were less of those 
petty trespasses which now annoy neighbors, and of those malicious 
tale tellings which now set neighborhoods in an uproar. The 
people of that day were governed less by law than by public 
opinion. Their capital — their stock in trade, as well as their 
personal security, depended much more upon the amount of esteem 
and confidence conferred upon them by their neighbors than upon 
their ability to drive a hard bargain, or make a show of superior 
wealth and equipage. They lived more directly under the sway 
of the original elements of the social compact — mutual aid and 
dependence. And, notwithstanding their heterogeneousuess as to 
colonial paternity, religious sentiment and even language, there 
existed more unity, more esprit du corps, and less segregation into 



^ We have heard old settlers say, that, in early times, the common opinion was that 
this region of country, despite its rich soil and fine springs and water courses, could 
never come to much for want of iron and salt ! 



CH. VI.] EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 107 

classes and castes than now. What they lacked in refinement, 
was more than compensated by their abundant hospitality. The 
new comer, or the stranger was always welcomed to their home, 
and their assistance, for they had themselves been strangers in a 
strange land.^^ If to resent an injury, or an insult, was in them an 
ever present feeling, there was just as constantly absent from their 
breasts that cold selfishness which is too apt to seize upon men in 
more advanced society, and which generally chills and dries up the 
social virtues to their very fountains. 

We have already referred to our early religious and educational 
engraftings, as evincing a healthy condition of our social beginnings. 
But there are other proofs, not less unequivocal. That petty litiga- 
tion, which now crowds our Court-houses and Justice's offices, was 
then unknown. The "hundred dollar act" was not then enacted, 
nor any of its prototypes. Our county was seven years in existence 
before it had a resident lawyer. And when our courts of justice 
were held at Carlisle, or Bedford, or Hannastowu, or even at old 
Beesontown, the sturdy yeomanry from Cheat and George's creek, 
from the Monongahela and Redstone, and the Yough, who resorted 
to their sittings, went there more to exchange greetings and hear 
the news of the day, than to foment disputes, or testify against 
their neighbor's honesty or reputation. Assaults and batteries, 
unless highly aggravated, were settled at home, or in the field ; 
petty thefts were punished by frowns, or banishment. Many a 
court passed without the grand jury having to find a single bill. 
And whoever will consult our early court records will learn that 
nearly all the actions brought and contested related in some way 
to the title, or possession, or payment of lands; while ceriioraris 
and appeals from justices of the peace, actions for slander and on 
horse swaps, and "suits for settlement" and on express contracts, 
were comparatively unknown. The men of that day sought to be 



® A remarkable instance of kindness to strangers occurred in what is now Luzerne 
township, on Coxe's run, at a very early day. A stranger, from the vicinity of Hagers- 
town, by the name of Applegate, had somehow got his leg badly broken in the woods, 
and in that condition was found by an old settler, who at once had him borne to his 
cabin, where every aid and comfort within reach was provided. But it being late in the 
fall, and the stranger knowing that the remedy for his misfortune was time and patience, 
was very anxious to be again among his family and friends. There was then no carriage 
road across the mountains, nothing but a pack-horse path. To convey him home, eight 
of the neighbors agreed to carry him on a sort of hammock, swung on two poles like a 
bier. This they did, all the way to Hagerstown ! Four of the men were Michael Cock, 
William Conwell, Thomas Davidson and Rezin Virgin. Tradition has failed to preserve 
the names of the other four "good Samaritans." 



108 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VI. 

a law unto themselves, and were of too lofty a spirit to be actors in 
the low kennels of modern chicanery. Their word was their bond — 
its seal their honor — its penalty the fear of social degradation. 

We have yet to sketch the trying times of the Boundary Contro- 
versy — the Revolutionary and Indian Wars and the Whiskey Insur- 
rection; — events in our early history which are too prominent, and 
too full of interesting incident, to be crowded into any general 
narrative. For their prompt resistance to the foes of their lives 
and liberties, native and foreign, our early settlers ask not even the 
apologj of fondness for adventure. And it must not be inferred 
because of the wild excitements into which they were thrown in 
1774, and again in '94, that they were lawless and turbulent. Their 
resistance to doubtful rule and questionable taxation sprang less 
from criminal propensities than from their antecedents and present 
privations. Their very simplicity and hardy virtues made them an 
easy prey to interested partizans and designing demagogues. And, 
while thus wrought upon, like the placid ocean by the unseen wind, 
they were enacting the stormy resistance of those periods, they, 
when the appliances which aroused them were removed, yielded 
as submissively and heartily to the gravitating influences of law 
and order, as if nothing had ever occurred to disturb them.^® 



^^ The Hon. William Findley, in his " History of the Western Insurrection of 1794," 
devotes a chapter to exhibit this peculiarity of character among the eai-ly yeomanry of 
Southwestern Pennsylvania — ready and entire acquiescence after impassioned and well 
grounded, though unlawful resistance; in which respects thej' compare most favorably 
with the Connecticut claimants in our own State, the Massachusetts rebellion, and 
other similar troubles in our early national history. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MEMOIRS OF EARLY SETTLERS. 

1. — The Browns — Wendell, Maunus, Thomas and Adam. 2. — Christopher Gist and 
Family — Thomas, Nathaniel, Richard, Anne and Mrs. Cromwell. 3. — Col. William 
Crawford. 4. — Col. James Paull. 5. — Col. George Wilson. 6. — Col. Alexander 
McClean. 7, — John Smilie. 8. — Gen. Ephraim Douglass. 9. — Albert Gallatin. — 
Appendix — List of Early (1772) Settlers in Fayette, and parts of Greene, Washing- 
ton, Westmoreland and Allegheny ; and the townships then existing — Spring Hill' 
Tyrone and Rostraver. 

We arrange these, as nearly as we can, in the order in which 
the subjects of them became inhabitants of what is now Fayette 
county. 

WENDELL BROWN AND SONS. 

The most prominent facts, known to us, in the lives of these 
men have been already noticed — that they were the first white 
settlers within our limits, having come here as early as 1750-'51, 
when our county was an unbroken wilderness, and their only 
associates and neighbors the tawny sons of the forest. We suppose 
the West is full of such instances of self exile ; but we cannot 
define the peculiarity of mental organization which leads to it. 

They came from that hive of our early settlers — Virginia ; but 
from what part of it, we are uninformed ; and we believe that 
until their second advent — after the dangers from Indian hostility 
which attended and followed the old French war had subsided, 
they were unaccompanied by any females or children. These 
indispensable ingredients in the cup of domestic life would but 
have added bitterness to the anxieties which beset their forest 
abode. 

When Washington's little army was at the Great Meadows, or 
Fort Necessity, the Browns packed provisions to him — corn and 
beef. And when he surrendered to the French and Indians, on 
the 4th of July, 1754, they retired, with the retreating colonial 
troops, across the mountains ; whence they returned to their lands 
after the re-instatement of the English dominion by Forbes' army 
in 1758. 



110 THE MONONGAIIELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

"I could repeat numerons Indian stories told by Abraham and 
Christopher Brown, sons of Maunus and grandsons of Wendell 
Brown ; but one or two must suffice. 

"It is well known that while the Indians held undivided sway 
in this region they had one or more lead mines in our mountains, 
the localities of which they guarded with inviolable secrecy. The 
discovery of these by the Browns would have been an invaluable 
acquisition to their venatorial pursuits. Many efforts did they 
make to find them, and many sly attempts to follow the Indians in 
their resorts to the mines, but all in vain. And more than once 
did they narrowly escape detection and consequent death, by their 
eagerness to share the forbidden treasure. 

"Abraham Brown used to relate of his uncle Thomas, that having 
offended the Indians by some tricks played upon them, (perhaps 
in contrivances to discover their lead mines and by repeatedly 
escaping from them when taken prisoner,) he once escaped being 
burnt only by the timely interposition of a friendly chief; but 
that eventually they caught him, when no such intercessor was 
nigh, and knocked out all his teeth with a piece of iron and a 
tomahawk. This was savage cruelty. Now, for savage honesty. 
In a season of scarcity, some Indians came to the Browns for 
provisions. The old man sold them eight rows of corn. He after- 
wards found they had taken just the eight rows, and not an 
ear more. 

"I knew Adam Brown — 'old Adam,' as he was called. He 
boasted of having been a king's lieutenant in his early days ; 
having probably served with the Virginia provincials in the French 
and Indian wars. For his services he claimed to have had a Royal 
grant of land, of nine miles square, extending from near Mount 
Braddock along the face of Laurel Hill southward, and westward 
as far as New Salem, I have seen a large stone, standing a little 
Southwest of the residence of Daniel (or William) Moser, in George 
township, which -the Jate John McClelland said was a corner of 
Adam's claim. The old lieutenant, it was said, induced many 
acquaintances to settle around him, on his grant, — the Downards, 
McCarty's, Brownfields, Henthorns, Kindells, Scotts., Jennings', 
Greens, McDonalds', Iligginsons, &c. ; and, out of abundant 
caution, he and his brother Maunus, and they, entered applications 
for their lands in the Pennsylvania Land-Office, on the 14th of 
June, 1769, and had them surveyed soon after. They seem to 
have been quiescent in the 'Boundary Controversy.' But it was 



CH. VII.] CHRISTOPHER GIST. Ill 

said that early in 1775, Adam and some of his associates had 
employed an agent to go to London to perfect the Royal grant ; 
when, npon the breaking out of the Revolution, which ended the 
King's power in this country, they gave up the effort, and in due 
time perfected their titles under Pennsylvania. From this and 
some other grounds, arose the current allegation that old Adam 
and sundry of his neighbors were unfriendly to the cause of 
American independence. We believe they were never guilty of 
any overt acts of Toryism. They are now all gone ; and, with two 
or three exceptions, none of them have now any descendants in 
the county. The Maunus Brown branch of the family has always 
been considered free of the taint charged to 'old Adam,' and has 
been productive of good citizens." 

CHRISTOPHER GIST AND FAMILY. 

The ancestral head of the Gists in Fayette has been already 
noticed, as having come here as agent of the old Ohio Company, 
and settled on the Mount Braddock lands in 1753. The fact that 
the body of this Company was in Virginia, although its head was 
in London and a limb extended into Maryland, has led to the 
belief, generally adopted, that Christopher Gist came from Virginia. 
And it seems that, for a while at least, he was domiciled in that 
colony, although he was, we believe, a native of England. But 
when his agency for the Ohio Company commenced he had his 
abode away down in x^orth Carolina, on the Yadkin, near the 
confines of Virginia. Returning home after his mission to the 
Ohio Indians, in 1751, he found his house burnt by the Southern 
savages, and his family driven up into Virginia, on the Roanoke. 
In this vicinity, it is probable, he resided until he removed to the 
Monongahela country, in 1753. 

Christopher Gist was among the earliest adventurers into this 
region of country, and had probably been west of the mountains 
before his agency for the Ohio Company. Our first traces of his 
travels indicate a considerable knowledge of our mountain paths 
and passes, and of the Indian tribes who peopled the Ohio valley. 
The Ohio Company was formed in 1748, and began its preliminary 
operations in 1750, in which year we find Mr. Gist the bearer of a 
speech from the Governor of Virginia to the Ohio Indians. He 
was out again in 1751 ; when he visited the Indian tribes on the 
Muskingum, Scioto and Miami. He returned by the valley of the 



112 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII- 

Kentucky river to North Carolina. He thus became one of the 
earliest Anglo-Saxon explorers of what are now the rich States of 
Ohio and Kentucky ; of which he said " nothing is wanted but 
cultivation to make this a most delightful country." He set out 
again in the spring of 1752, and attended an Indian treaty, or 
council, at Logstown, on the Ohio, some sixteen miles below 
Pittsburgh. These missions were all on behalf of the Ohio 
Company, to conciliate the Indians and look out for good lands. 
In the latter part of 1753, he accompanied Washington, as his 
guide, from Wills' creek (Cumberland) to the French posts on the 
Allegheny. He was again with him in his military expedition of 
1754, and was with Braddock in 1755. He had also been with 
Capt. Trent in the abortive eiibrt of the Ohio Company to build 
their fort at the "Forks of the Ohio," in February, 1754. 

The defeat of Braddock, in July, 1755, seems to have ended his 
agency for the Ohio Company, and he now turned his energies 
into other channels. Virginia kept up her efforts to repel the 
French and Indians until after the conquest by Forbes, in 1758, 
and Gist found ample employment in the service of that colony. 
In the fall of 1755, he raised a company of scouts in the frontiers 
of Virginia and Maryland ; and thereafter he becomes known as 
Captain Gist. In 1756, he was sent Southwest to enlist a body of 
the Cherokee Indians into the English service, and succeeded. 
He thereupon, in 1757, became Deputy Indian Agent in the South, 
a service "for which," says Col. Washington, "I know of no 
person so well qualified. He has had extensive dealings with the 
Indians, is in great esteem among them, well acquainted with their 
manners and customs, indefatigable and patient; and as to his 
honesty, capacity and zeal, I dare venture to engage." 

What part, if any, he took in Forbes' campaign, we do not know. 
Perhaps his Indian agency kept him employed elsewhere. He 
seems to have been well educated, and was a good surveyor. 
He was, moreover, a man of great natural shrewdness and energy — 
a "woodsman" of the highest order. We are left to conjecture 
to assign a motive for fixing an abode in these then inhospitable 
wilds. Perhaps it was to establish a station for expeditions of the 
Ohio Company : — perhaps the beautiful body of land upon which 
he reared his cabin was a temptation too powerful to be overcome 
by the quiet and comforts of civilized society. Although he 
returned and resumed his possessions here after Forbes' conquest, 
we think he did not again permanently settle with his family until 
about 1765. He transferred his land claims to his son Thomas, 



en. YII.] CHRISTOPHER GIST. 113 

aud having settled liim, and his son-in-law, Cromwell,^ he soon 
afterwards returned to Virginia, or ISTorth Carolina, and there died, 
and was buried among his kindred. Doubtless, like the poet .of 
"Sweet Auburn," the wish had never been lost, amid all his 
perilous wanderings, 

" his long vexations past, 

There to return — and die at home at last." 

There are some incidents in the return of "Washington and Gist 
from their embassy to the French, in 1753-'54, which we must 
narrate in their own language, as found in their journals. The 
time is December — the scene, the unbroken wilderness of what is 
now Butler and Allegheny counties, North and West of the 
Allegheny river. Snow had fallen. It was becoming very cold. 
The horses were very weak and were giving out, scarcely able to 
carry the baggage. Washington determined to leave them in 
charge of Vanbraam and his other "servitors," and hasten on with 
Gist, afoot. 

Says Washington, "I took my necessary papers, pulled off my 



^ The following aiSdavit of William Stewart sheds light on several subjects and locali- 
ties embraced in these sketches : — 
"Fayette Countt, ss. 

Before the subscriber, '^one of the Commonwealth's justices of the peace, 
for said county, personally appeared William Stewakt, who being of lawful age, and 
duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, saith : — That he was living in this 
country, near Stewart's Crossings, in the year 1753, and part of the year 1754, until he 
was obliged to remove hence on account of the French taking possession of this coun- 
try, — that he was well acquainted with Captain Christopher Gist and family, and also 
with Mr. William Cromwell, Capt, Gist's son-in-law. He further saith that the land 
where Jonathan Hill now lives, and the land where John Murphy now lives, was settled 
by William Cromwell, as this deponent believes and always understood, as a tenant to 
the said Christopher Gist. The said Cromwell claimed a place called the "Beaver 
Dams," which is the place now owned by Philip Shute,' and where he now lives; [part 
of Col. Evans' estate] and this deponent further saith that he always understood that 
the reason of said Cromwell's not settling on his own land (the Beaver Dams) was, that 
the Indians in this country at that time were very plenty, and the said Cromwell's wife 
was afraid, or did not choose to live so far from her father and mother, there being at 
that time but a very few families of white people settled in this country. And this 
deponent further saith * * * * that when this deponenf s father, himself and 
brothers first came into this country, in the beginning of the year 1763, they attempted 
to take possession of the said Beaver Dams, and were warned off by some of said 
Christopher Gist's family, who informed them that the same belonged to Wm. Cromwell, 
the said Gist's son-in-law. And further deponent saith not. 

WILLIAM STEWART." 
Sworn and subscribed before me this 20th day of April, 178G. 

James Finley. 

8 



114 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

clothes, and tied myself up in a wateli coat. Then, with gun in 
hand, and pack on my back, in which were my papers and pro- 
visions, I set out with Mr. Gist, fitted in the same manner, on 
Wednesday, the 26th (December). The day following, just after 
we had passed a place called Murderingtown, [in Butler county] we 
fell in with a party of French and Indians, who had laid in wait 
for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist, or me, not fifteen steps off, 
hut fortunately missed. We took this fellow into custody, and 
kept him until about nine o'clock at night, then let him go, and 
walked all the remaining part of the night, without making any 
itop, that we might get the start so far, as to be out of the reach 
of their pursuit the next day." Mr. Gist relates this occurrence 
thus: — "We rose early in the morning, and set out about two 
o'clock, and got to the Murderingtown, on the south-east fork of 
Beaver creek. Here we met an Indian, whom I thought I had 
seen at Joncaire's, at Venango, when on our journey up to the 
French Fort. This fellow called me by my Indian name and 
pretended to be glad to see me. I thought very ill of the fellow, 
but did not care to let the Major [Washington] know that I mis- 
trusted him. But he soon mistrusted him as much as I did. The 
Indian said he could hear a gun from his cabin, and steered us 
more northwardly. We grew uneasy ; and then he said two 
whoops might be heard from his cabin. We went two miles 
further. Then the Major said he would stay at the next water. 
We came to water, to a clear meadow. It was very light, and 
snow was on the ground. The Indian made a stop and turned 
about. The Major saw him point his gun towards us, and he fired. 
Said the Major, 'are you shot?' — 'No,' said I ; upon which the 
Indian ran forward to a big standing white oak, and began loading 
his gun. But we were soon with him. I would have killed him, 
but the Major would not suffer me. We let him charge his gun. 
We found he put in a ball ; then we took care of him. Either the 
Major or I always stood by the guns. We made the Indian make 
a fire for us by a little run, as if we intended to sleep there. I 
said to the Major: 'As you will not have him killed, we must 
get him away, and then we must travel all night.' Upon which I 
said to the Indian, 'I suppose you were lost, and fired your gun.' 
He said he knew the way to his cabin, and it was but a little way. 
'Well,' said I, 'do you go home, and as we are tired, we will 
follow your track in the morning ; and here is a cake for you, and 
you must give us meat for it in the morning.' He was glad to 
get away. I followed him and listened, until he was fairly out of 



CH. VII.] CHRISTOPHER GIST'S CHILDREN. 115 

the way ; and then we went about half a mile, when we made a 
fire, set our compass, fixed our course, and traveled all night. 
In the morning we were on the head of Pine creek." 

"The next day," says Washington, "we continued traveling 
until quite dark, and got to the river [Allegheny] about two miles 
above Shannopin's town [two or three miles above Pittsburgh]. 
We expected to have found the river frozen, but it was not, only 
about fifty yards from each shore. The ice was driving in vast 
quantities. There was no way to get over but on a raft, which we 
set about making, with but one poor hatchet, and finished just 
after sun set. This was a whole day's work. We next got it 
launched, then went on board of it, and set off. But before we 
were half way over, we were jammed in the ice in such a manner 
that we expected every moment our raft to sink and ourselves to 
perish. I put out my setting pole, to try to stop the raft that the 
ice might pass by ; when the rapidity of the stream threw it with 
80 much violence against the pole, that it jerked me out into ten 
feet water ; but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one 
of the raft logs. N"otwithstanding all our eftbrts, we could not get 
to either shore, but were obliged, as we were near an Island 
[Wainwright's] to quit our raft and make to it. The cold was 
80 extremely severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers, and some of 
his toes frozen ; and the water was shut up so hard, that we found 
no difficulty in getting ofif the Island on the ice the next morning, 
and went on to Frazier's." 

Christopher Gist had three sons, ISTathaniel, Thomas and Richard ; 
and two daughters, Anne, never married, and Violet, wife of 
William Cromwell, whom her father settled on that part of his 
lands which is now owned by Isaac Wood. Cromwell afterwards 
ungratefully set up a claim to it in his own right, which he sold to 
one Samuel Lyon, with whom Thomas Gist had a protracted, but 
successful controversy for the title. Each of these sons, as well as 
the father, acquired inceptive titles to different parts of the Mount 
Braddock lands. All their rights were eventually united in Thomas 
Gist, who perfected the titles. He died in 1786, on the Mount 
Braddock estate, and is there buried. By his last will, dated in 
1772, he devised his estates to his only daughter, Elizabeth Johnson, 
who married Andrew McKown, and to his brothers and sisters and 
their children. These soon sold out to Isaac Meason, the elder, — 
many of them having before that time removed to Kentucky, where 
their descendants are still believed to reside. Anne, the maiden 
sister, resided with Thomas until his death, and became his ad- 



IIG THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

ministiator with tlic \Yill annexed — as the executors named in the 
will, Gen. Mordecai Gist, of Baltimore, and George Dawson,^ resided 
out of the State. 

Thomas Gist was a man of some note. In 1770, while we were 
part of Cumberland county, he was commissioned a justice of the 
peace. His commission was, in 1771, renewed for Bedford county, 
and in 1773, for Westmoreland, where he presided in the October 
Sessions of the Courts of that year. Washington dined with him 
on the 25th K^ovember, 1770, when returning from his Western 
land tour of that year; whence, after dinner, he proceeded to 
Hogland's, at the Great Crossings. We judge that the dinner 
must have been served up at an early hour, and that but little time 
was spent "after the cloth was removed." 

Of Eichard Gist we know, certainly, nothing worthy of record. 
His celebrity, if he acquired any, was in Kentucky, W'hither he 
removed at an early period.^ 

jSTathaniel Gist became the most conspicuous of the sons, at 
least in a military point of view. Obscurity rests alike upon his 
early and later career.* He seems to have been a subordinate 



- General Gist is named in the Will, whicli is dated in 1772, as "Mordecai Gist, 
merchant, of Baltimore." He afterwards becomes Brigadier General of the Maryland 
Line in the Revolution ; and Tvas probably a younger brother of Christopher Gist. He 
died at Charleston, S. C, in August, 1792. In 1771, he had a claim to some land "near 
the Big Meadows, on Braddock's road," taken up for him by Thomas Gist. So also 
had Joshua Gist. 

George Dawson was the grandfather of the present George and John Dawson, Esqs., 
of Fayette, and great-grandfather of Hon. John Littleton Dawson. He was really dead 
before 1786. But his son Nicholas, who in 1783, had removed into the Virginia "pan- 
handle" on the Ohio, just below the State line, was his executor, and was thereby sup- 
posed to be entitled to become executor of Gist. Hence the record reads as stated in the 
text. The Dawsons owned and resided on the lands in North Union township, recently 
the home of Col. Wm. Swearingen. 

^ Sec note 5. 

* In a note to one of Col. "Washington's letters in II. Sparks, 283, under date of May, 
1758, we find the following story related, and as Christopher Gist at this time was 
designated as " Captain Gist," we ]^vesu.mQ Lieutenant Gist was his son Nathaniel: — 
"An Indian named Ucahula was sent from Fort Loudoun [Winchester] with a party of 
six soldiers and thirty Indians, under command of Lieutenant Gist. After great 
fatigues and sufferings, occasioned by the snows on the Allegheny Mountains, they 
reached the Monongahela river, where Lieutenant Gist, by a fall from a precipice, 
was rendered unable to proceed, and the party separated. Ucahula, with two other 
Indians, descended the Monongahela [from the mouth of Redstone] in a bark canoe, 
till they came near Fort Du Quesne. Here they left their canoe, and concealed them- 
selves on the margin of the river, tiU they had the opportunity of attacking two 
Frenchmen, who were fishing in a canoe, and whom they killed and scalped. These 
'scalps' were brought to Fort Loudoun by Ucahula." 



CH, 



VII.] NATHANIEL GIST. IIT 



officer on the Virginia and Maryland frontier in the French and 
Indian war. In January, 1777, he was, by General Washington, ap- 
pointed colonel of one of the sixteen new battalions ordered by 
Congress, and was sent into the Cherokee country, to add to his 
four companies of rangers, five hundred Indians. He failed in 
this, but held command of his battalion of rangers for some years? 
and was in the service at the close of the war. He commanded a 
detachment in the march of the American army from Englishtown, 
N"ew Jersey, to King's Ferry, in July, 1778. Prior to this, in 
March, 1778, he was again sent southward, to enlist the Cherokees 
into the service of the struggling colonies, and seems to have had 
some success. Gen. Washington speaks of him as well acquainted 
with that powerful tribe of Indians and their allies. He had 
doubtless been with his father in his Indian agency, in that quarter, 
in 1756-'8 ; and, it seems, succeeded to the office after his father's 
death. We trace him, from 1786 to 1794, as General Gist, of 
Buckingham county, Virginia ; within which period he was several 
times in Fayette county, on business with Judge Meason.* 

It may be that we have not done full justice to Col. Nathaniel 
Gist's Eevolutiouary services, from our inability to discriminate 
between him and his Baltimore relative, who also bore the rank 
and designation of "Col. Gist" until January, 1779. 



5 From a letter of Benjamin Sharp, in II. American Pioneer, 237, dated Warren county, 
Missouri, March 3, 1843, we take the following; -which gives some light upon the history 
of the Gists : — 

" In the year 1776, he [Col. Nathaniel Gist] was the British Superintendent of the 
Southern Indians, and was then in the Cherokee nation. And when Col. Christian car- 
ried his expedition into the Indian country, he surrendered himself to him ; and although 
the inhabitants were so exasperated at him that almost every one that mentioned his 
name wotild threaten his life, yet Christian conveyed him through the frontier settle- 
ments unmolested ; and he went on to head-quarters to General Washington, where, I 
suppose, their former friendship was revived. He became a zealous Whig, and obtained, 
through the General's influence, as was supposed, a Colonel's commission in the Con- 
tinental army, and served with reputation during the war. He afterwards settled in 
Kentucky, where he died not many years ago. I well recollect of the friends of Gen. 
Jackson boasting that a luxuriant young hickory had sprung out of his grave, in honor 
of old hickory face, the hero of New Orleans. One of his uncles, also a Col. Nathaniel 
Gist [Mordecai?] was uncle to my wife by marriage; and Ms youuger brother [Query — 
the uncle's or the nephew's?] Richard Gist, lived a close neighbor to my father in 1780, 
and went on the expedition to King's Mountain, and fell there, within twenty -five or 
thirty steps of the British lines, of which I am yet a living witness." 



118 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 



COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD 

"Was a native of Virginia, and we believe of Berkeley county. 
He was a surveyor, and in that pursuit had early in life become 
acquainted with Washington, when on some of his surveying 
excursions into that the then frontier part of Virginia. Crawford 
was a Virginia captain in Forbes' army against the French and 
Indians at Fort Du Quesne, in 1758 ; and in that expedition behaved 
so well as to gain largely upon the confidence of Washington, who 
was ever afterwards his steadfast friend.^ After that signal event, 
we lose sight of him until 1767, when he came into and settled in 
what is now Fayette county — then Bedford, or, as he supposed. 
West Augusta county, Virginia. He fixed his abode on Brad- 
dock's road, on the western bank of the Youghiogheny river, a 
little below Wew Haven. The place was then, and long afterwards, 
known as Stewart's Crossings. Here he continued to reside until 
his tragical death. We fix 1767 as the date of his settlement from 
two pieces of evidence. The one is an account of his against one 
James McKee, which his executors sued on in Fayette county 
Court, in 1785, which account begins in 1767. The other is a 
letter from Washington to him, dated Sept. 21, 1767,^ requesting 
him to survey lands for him in this country. It has been said, 
however, that he did not remove his family until 1768, which is 
probable. His wife, Hannah, was a sister of John Vance, the 
father of Moses Vance, of Tyrone township. He had a brother, 
Valentine Crawford, who figured to some extent in these parts in 
the Boundary troubles.^ Colonels John and Richard Stevenson 
were his half-brothers. Col. Crawford had, we believe, but one 
son, John, and two daughters, Ophelia, wife of William McCormick, 
and Sarah, who married Major Wm. Harrison, and, after his death, 
became the wife of Major Uriah Springer. She left issue by both 
marriages. Mrs. McCormick also left children. But it is said 
that few of these descendants of Col. Crawford inherit his energies, 



^ He accompanied Washington on bis land tour, down the Ohio to Kenhawa, in 1770. 

^ See this letter in full in the sketch entitled : "Washington in Fayette." 

* Valentine Crawford, styled Colonel, owned land in Bullskin township, which, about 

1784, was sold by the Sheriff of Westmoreland to Col. Isaac Meason. He was dead in 

1785, and John Minter was his administrator. In 1773 he resided in Frederick county, 
Maryland. The land of John Gaddis, Esq., now his son, Jacob Gaddis, above 'Sock, 
was held originally by George Paull, Jr., in right of Valentine Crawford. 



CH. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 119 

either physical or mental. The reader will remember that Major 
Harrison, William Crawford, Jr., (son of Valentine, we presnme,) 
and Major William Rosse, another nephew of Col. Crawford, lost 
their lives in Crawford's campaign, while John, the son, escaped. 
He, a few years afterwards, sold his land to Col. Isaac Meason, and 
settled near the mouth of Brush Creek, on the Ohio river, where 
he died. 

It appears from the account above referred to, and other evidence, 
that when Capt. Crawford first came into this region, he, as well 
as Valentine, were engaged in the Indian trade, a pursuit very 
common to our early settlers. lie also exercised, to a limited 
extent, his vocation of surveyor, ^nd in that capacity made numerous 
unofficial surveys for Washington and his brothers Samuel and 
John Augustine, and his relative, Lund Washington, as well as for 
others, — even before the lands were bought from the Indians. 
The object was to acquire Virginia rights. The captain also took 
up several valuable tracts for himself, in the vicinity of Stewart's 
Crossings, but none of them, we believe, in his own name. The 
home tract, at the Crossings, is in the name of his son John, — 
others are in the names of Benjamin Harrison,* Wm. Harrison, 
Battle Harrison, Lawrence Harrison, Jr., &c. He owned other 
lands by purchase from the original settlers. 

Upon the erection of Bedford county, in 1771, Capt. Crawford 
was appointed a justice of the peace. His appointment was 
renewed after the erection of Westmoreland, in 1773. He was 
Presiding Justice of the Courts of that county, when his commis- 
sions were revoked in January, 1775, for the reasons noticed in 
our sketch of the "Boundary Controversy," — he having become a 
very active and somewhat indiscreet Virginia partizan against the 
Penn Government. After Virginia had, in 1776, undertaken to 
parcel out the disputed territory into counties, and established 
land offices within it, Capt. Crawford was appointed the land 
officer, or surveyor of Yohogania county, which office he held 
during the Revolution and until Virginia surrendered her pre- 
tensions, in 1779-'80. 

Crawford was fitted by nature to be a soldier and a leader. 
Ambitious, cool and brave, he possessed that peculiar courage and 



* Tbe ancestor of this Harrison family was Lawrence Harrison, who owned the tract 
of land adjoining the Crawford lands, and which is now owned by Daniel Rogers and 
James Blackstone, and perhaps others. His daughter, Catharine, was the wife of Hon. 
Isaac ileason, the elder, of Mount Braddock. 



120 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD, [CH. VII, 

sldll which is adapted to Indian or border warfare. His ardent 
love of adventure and figlit, got the better of his prudence and 
Pennsylvania loyalty in the controversy with Virginia. In 1774, 
while a sworn peace officer of Pennsylvania, he, contrary to the 
Penn policy, led two bodies of troops down the Ohio, in Dunmore's 
war, and, for a while, commanded at "Wheeling. He, however, 
had no fighting to do. 

"We find him taking part, as a good American patriot, in the 
first Revolutionary meeting held at Fort Pitt, in May, 1775, along 
with Smith, Wilson and others, to v/hora, as firm adherents to 
Pennsylvania in the recent conflict, he had been actively opposed. 

Soon after this he seems to have entered the military service of 
Virginia. In February, 1776, he is appointed Lieutenant Colonel of 
the Fifth Regiment of the forces of that colony; and in September 
following we find him with his regiment at "Williamsburg, the 
ancient capital of the Old Dominion. In October, 1776, he became 
Colonel of the Seventh Virginia Regiment. In February, 1777, 
Congress appropriated ^20,000, "to be paid to Col. William 
Crawford for raising and equipping his regiment, which is part of 
the Virginia new levies." In a letter from the Colonel to Gen. 
Washington, dated at Williamsburg, in September, 1776, he 
expresses his apprehension of Indian troubles about Fort Pitt, 
and says if they arise he will be sent there. This expectation was 
not realized until IlTovember, 1777, when Congress "Resolved that 
Gen. Washington be requested to send Col. Wm. Crawford to 
Pittsburgh to take the command, under Brig. Gen. Hand, of the 
Continental troops and militia in the Western Department." He 
seems then to have been with Gen. Washington at his Head- 
Quarters at Whitemarsh, near Philadelphia ; and Congress being 
in session at York, Pa., the colonel repaired thither to receive his 
instructions, and soon after departed for the scene of his command. 
How long he held it, and what he did, are involved in obscurity. 
The only trace we find is, that in 1778, he built a fort on the 
Allegheny, some sixteen miles above Pittsburgh, called Fort 
Crawford; and Mr. Sparks, in a note to IL Sparks' W^ashington, 
o46, says he took command of the regiment in May, 1778. It is 
probable that the regiment referred to was one of the two which 
Congress, early in that year, ordered to be raised on the frontiers 
of Virginia and Pennsylvania for their defence ; and that the 
regiment of "Virginia new levies," to which the $20,000 had 
been appropriated, was assigned to some other officer. 

The dangers from Indian aggression having subsided, or being 



en. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 121 

otherwise provided against, it seems that Col. Crawford, in 1779, 
returned home and resumed his duties as laud officer of Virginia 
for Yohogania county, in which the sittings of the Virginia Com- 
missioners at Coxe's Fort and Redstone Old Fort, in the latter 
part of that year and beginning of 1780, gave him ample employ- 
ment. We believe he never again engaged in military service 
until he went into the ill-fated campaign of 1782, which cost him 
his life. 

As a distinct military enterprise, Crawford's Oampaign belongs 
to another sketch,^ to which we refer the reader. Our purpose 
here is limited to its fatal personal relations to its renowned 
commander. 

Whether from a presentiment of his untimely end, or from the 
dictates of that prudence which Washington evinced in like cir- 
cumstances. Col. Crawford, before setting out in the perilous 
march, made his last will,'' and disposed of his estate among his 
children. And on the 14th of May, 1782, three or four days before 
leaving home, he and wife, for the consideration of natural love 
and affection, and five shillings, conveyed to his son-in-law, who 
accompanied him. Major William Harrison, sixty-eight acres of 
land on the Yough river, adjoining where said Harrison then lived. 
The deed is acknowledged the same day before Providence Mountz, 
Esq., and appended to it is a curious memorandum., in imitation 
of the old English feudal feoffment, — that on the day of the date 
thereof, full and peaceable possession of said land being taken and 
had by said Crawford, the same was by him, then and there, in 
due form, by turf and twig, delivered to said Harrison, and the five 
shillings thereupon paid : — Test : Providence Mountz and P. 
Mountz, Jr. Col. Crawford, however, left his private afifairs in a 
very unsettled condition, as he passed through the excitements and 
vicissitudes of the later years of his life ; the necessary result of 
which was, that his estate, soon after his death, was swept away 
from his family by a flood of claims, some of which, doubtless, had 
no just foundation. His widow was sustained for many years by 
a pension. 

In another sketch, already referred to, the reader may acquaint 
himself with the most prominent incidents of the march and of the 
disastrous encounter of the 5th of June, 1782, on the plains of 



5 See "Revolutionary and Indian wars," — Chap. X. 

fi His -will, recorded in Westmoreland county, bears date May 16, 1782. 



122 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

Sandusky, where Col. Crawford "fought his last battle,"— and we 
believe his first one also. 

The Colonel headed the retreat of the main body of his discom- 
fited' band. To assure himself whether or not his son and other 
relatives were safe, he stopped and went back, or let the army pass 
him, to make inquiry. Not finding them, he left the line of 
retreat to make further search — but in vain. And now, so rapidly 
had the army moved, and so jaded was his horse, that he was 
unable to overtake it. This separation from his command cost 
him his life, as a sacrifice to parental solicitude. 

He soon fell in company with Dr. Knight, the surgeon of the 
regiment, and two others, and guided by the stars they traveled 
all night in varied directions to elude the pursuit of the enemy. 
On the next day they were joined by four others, of whom were 
Capt. John Biggs and Lieut. Ashley, the latter badly wounded. 
These eight now held together, and on the second night of the 
flight ventured to encamp. The next day they came to the path 
by which the army had advanced ; and a council was held as to 
whether it would be safer to pursue it, or to continue their course 
through the woods. The Colonel's opinion decided them to keep 
the open path. A line of march was formed, with Crawford and 
Knight in front. Biggs and Ashley in the centre, on horseback, 
while the other footmen brought up the rear. " Scarcely had they 
proceeded a mile when several Indians sprung up within twenty 
yards of the path, presented their guns, and in good English 
ordered them to stop. Knight sprung behind a tree, and leveled 
his gun at one of them. Crawford ordered him not to fire, and 
the Doctor reluctantly obeyed. The Indians ran up to Col. Craw- 
ford in a friendly manner, shook his hands and asked him how he 
did. Biggs and Ashley halted, while the men in the rear took to 
their heels and escaped. Col. Crawford ordered Capt. Biggs to 
come up and surrender, but the Captain instead of doing so, took 
aim at an Indian, fired, and then he and Ashley put spurs to their 
horses, and for the present escaped. They were both overtaken 
and killed the next day. 

"On the morning of the 10th of June, Col. Crawford, Dr. Knight 
and nine other prisoners, were conducted by seventeen Indians to 
the old Sandusky town, about thirty-three miles distant. They 
were all blacked by Pipe, a Delaware chief, who led the captors, 
and the other nine were marched ahead of Crawford and Knight. 
Four of the prisoners were tomahawked and scalped on the way 
at different places, and when the other five arrived at the town> 



CH. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 123 

the boys aud squaws fell upon them and tomahawked them in a 
moment." 

We now approach the "last scene of all, which ends this strange 
eventful history," aud we borrow the eloquent description of it by 
Captain McClung.' 

" As soon as the Colonel arrived they surrounded him, stripped 
him naked and compelled him to sit on the ground near a large 
fire, around which were about thirty warriors, and more than 
double that number of squaws and boys. They then fell upon him 
and beat him severely with their fists and sticks. In a few minutes 
a large stake was fixed in the ground and piles of hickory poles, 
about twelve feet long, were spread around it. Col. Crawford's 
hands were then tied behind his back ; a strong rope was produced, 
one end of which was fastened to the ligature between his wrists, 
and the other tied to the bottom of the stake. The rope was long 
enough to permit him to walk round the stake several times and 
then return. Fire was then applied to the hickory poles, which 
lay in piles at the distance of several yards from the stake. 

" The Colonel observing these terrible preparations, called to 
the noted Simon Girty, who 'sat on horseback at a few yards 
distance from the fire, and asked if the Indians were going to burn 
him. Girty very coolly replied in the afiirmative. The Colonel 
heard this with firmness, merely observing that he would try and 
bear it with fortitude. When the hickory poles had been burnt 
asunder in the middle, Captain Pipe arose and addressed the crowd 
in a tone of great energy, and with animated gestures, pointing 
frequently to the Colonel, who regarded him with an appearance 
of unrufiled composure. As soon as he had finished, a loud whoop 
burst from the assembled throng, and they all at once rushed upon 
the unfortunate victim. For several seconds the crowd aud con- 
fusion were so great that Knight could not see what they were 
doing ; but in a short time they had sufliciently dispersed to give 
him a view of the Colonel. His ears had been cut offj and the 
blood was streaming down each side of his face. A terrible scene 
of torture now commenced. The warriors shot charges of powder 
into his naked body, commencing with the calves of his legs, and 
continuing to his neck. The boys snatched the burning hickory 
poles and applied them to his flesh. As fast as he ran around the 



'' See Patterson's "History of the Back-Woods." 



124 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

stake to avoid one party of tormentors, he was promptly met at 
every turn by others, with burning poles and red-hot irons ^nd rifles 
loaded with powder only ; so that in a few minutes nearly one 
hundred charges of powder had been shot into his body, which 
had become black and blistered in a dreadful degree. The squaws 
would take up quantities of coals and hot ashes and throw them 
upon his body, so that in a few minutes he had nothing but fire to 
walk upon. 

"In this extremity of his agony the unhappy Colonel called 
aloud upon Girty, in tones that rang through Knight's brain with 
maddening effect — ' Girty ! Girty ! shoot me through the heart ! 
Quick! Quick! Don't refuse me!!' — 'Don't you see I have no 
gun, Colonel ! ' replied the monster, bursting into a loud laugh ; 
and then turning to an Indian beside him, he uttered some brutal 
jests upon the naked and miserable appearance of the prisoner.® 

" The terrible scene had now lasted more than two hours, and 
Crawford had become much exhausted. He walked slowly around 
the stake, spoke in a low tone, and earnestly besought God to look 
with compassion upon him and to pardon his sins. His nerves 
had lost much of their sensibility, and he no longer shrank from the 
fire brands, with which they incessantly touched him. At length 
he sunk, in a fainting fit, upon his face and lay motionless. 
Instantly an Indian sprung upon his back, knelt lightly uipon one 
knee, made a circular incision with his knife upon the crown of 
his head, and, clapping the knife between his teeth, tore off the 
scalp with both hands. Scarcely had this been done, when a 
withered hag approached with a board full of burning embers, and 
poured them upon the crown of his head, now laid bare to the 
bone. The Colonel groaned deeply, rose and again walked slowly 
around the stake ! — But why continue a description so horrible ? 
JTature at length could endure no more, and at a late hour in the 



^ Girty's conduct in this savage scene is placed in a very different light by Mr. 
McCutchen's statement, appended to our subsequent sketch of Crawford's campaign, in 
" Ptevolutionary and Indian wars," which see. A few years before this tragedy, Craw- 
ford and Girty were acting in unison in their resistance of Pennsylvania rule, in the 
Boundary Controversy. It is said that Girty was a frequent guest at Capt. Crawford's 
hospitable cabin, and aspired to a Captaincy in the ^evolutionin-y war, but was disap- 
pointed, and thereupon turned Tory. He had before been made an Indian Chief of the 
Senecas. Another story is that he blamed Crawford for his failure to receive a com- 
mand in the American forces. And there is yet another silly tale that he aspired to the 
hand of one of Crawford's daughters, and was denied. 



en. VII.] COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. 125 

night lie was released by death from the hands of his tor- 
mentors."® 

It is believed that Major Harrison, Major Eosse and Ensign 
Wm. Crawford, Jr., being officers and known to some of the 
Indians, met a like fiery end, at other places. What a gorge of 
infernal revelry did the Crawford family afford to the infuriated 
savages. Of the five, John, the son, only escaped, to mourn their 
untimely end with his widowed mother and sister. For a while 
the wild grass of the prairie refused to grow upon their unurned 
ashes ; but over their undug graves often since hath " the peaceful 
harvest smiled." 

" Doctor Knight was doomed to be burnt at a Shawnese town, 
about forty miles distant from Sandusky, and was committed to 
the care of a young Indian to be taken there. The first day they 
ti'aveled about twenty-five miles and encamped for the night. In 
the morning, the gnats being very troublesome, the Doctor 
requested the Indian to untie him that he might help him to make 
a fire to keep them off. With this request the Indian complied. 
While the Indian was on his knees and elbows blowing the fire, 
the Doctor caught up the end of a stick which had been burned in 
two, with which he struck the Indian on the head, so as to knock 
him forward into the fire. Rising up instantly, he ran off with 
great rapidity, howling most piteously. Knight seized the Indian's 
rifle and pursued him, but drawing back the cock too violently he 
broke the mainspring, and relinquished the pursuit. The Doctor 
then took to the woods, and after many perils by land and water, 
reached Fort Mcintosh [Beaver] on the twenty-second day, nearly 
famished. During his journey he subsisted on young birds, roots 
and berries." He recruited a little strength and clothing at the 
fort, and then came home. He owed his life — and we the tale of 
Crawford's tortures — to the simple credulity of his young Indian 
bailiff".^" 



" The widow of CoL Crawford used to relate in addition to what is here stated, that 
the Indians stuck his body full of dry, sharp sticks, until he looked like a porcupine, and 
after he was tied to the stake they first set fire to these sticks, and laughed to see how 
they blazed and crackled around his naked body. 

^^ Dr. John Knight Was a man of small size, for that age of stalwart men. He resided 
in Bullskin township — was a son-in-law of Col. Richard Stevenson and brother-in-law of 
Presley Carr Lane. He removed to Shelby ville, Ky., with Mr. Lane, whose son John 
married the Doctor's daughter. The same John Lane was Marshal of Kentucky under 
President Polk. 



126 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 



COL. JAMES PAULL. 

This brave and magnanimous old settler, who was long spared 
to ns as a noble specimen of the men of the heroic age, was born in 
Frederick, now Berkeley county, Virginia, on the 17th September, 
1760. He died on the 9th July, 1841, aged nearly eighty-one years. 
He was the son of George Paull, who removed with his family into 
what is now Fayette county, in 1768, and settled in the Gist 
neighborhood, in what is now Dunbar township, on the land where 
his son, the subject of this notice, ever afterwards resided, and on 
part of which his son, Joseph Paull, now resides. He became the 
owner there of two or three contiguous tracts of laud, and of 
several other tracts elsewhere in the county. 

Col. Paull early in life evinced qualities of heart and soul calcu- 
lated to render him conspicuous ; added to which was a physical 
constitution of the hardiest kind. Throughout his long life, his 
bravery and patriotism, like his generosity, knew no limits. He ' 
loved enterprise and adventure as he loved his friends, and shunned 
no service or dangers to which they called him. He came to 
manhood just when such men were needed. 

His military services^ began ere he was eighteen years old. 
About the first of August, 1778, he was drafted to serve a month's 
duty in guarding the Continental stores at Fort Burd (Brownsville) 
— an easy service, which consisted in fishing and swimming all 
day, and taking turns to stand sentry at night. Pobert McGlaugh- 
lin, to whom we have elsewhere referred, was his commanding 
ofiicer. 

About the first of May, 1781, (having, in the meantime, gone 
frequently on occasional brief tours of service to the Washington 
and Westmoreland frontiers) he, with a commission as First Lieu- 
tenant, signed by Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, was 
ordered by Col. George Rogers Clarke, to recruit in Westmoreland 
(or Augusta) county, for the projected campaign of that year 
against Detroit, then held by the British and Tories. His captain 
was Benjamin Whaley, father of Captain James Whaley, now of 
Uniontown, and an officer of distinction in the war of 1812. A 
company was raised, who, taking boat at Elizabethtown, on the 



^ For most of these, down to the end of the Eevolution, in 1783, vre rely upon Colonel 
PauU's ovra statement, ivhen he applied for a pension under the act of June, 1832. His 
other services we gather from other reliable sources. 



CH. VII.] COL. JAMES PAULL. 127 

Monongahela, floated down to the mouth of Chartiers, where they 
halted for reinforcements. At Pittsburgh they were joined by 
Capt. Isaac Craig's artillery. They soon proceeded, with other 
troops, to the falls of the Ohio, now Louisville, from which the 
expedition known as Clarke's Campaign was to start. He was 
attached to the regiment commanded by Col. Crockett ; and among 
the other officers were Col. Hardin, Col. Morgan and Major Lowder, 
of Virginia, the last of whom deserted at Blannerhasset's Island. 
They arrived at the falls in August, and went into garrison. The 
requisite forces for the expedition having failed to assemble, it was 
abandoned. And now the trouble was to get home. He returned, 
with about one hundred others, through the wilderness of Ken- 
tucky and Virginia, to Morgantown, where the Colonel — Zachariah 
(or Zachwell) Morgan, resided. His return was a labor of more 
than two months, amid dangers seen and unseen, and privations 
innumerable. Paull arrived home in December. 

Early in the ensuing April (1782) he was again drafted for a 
month's frontier duty at the mouth of Turtle Creek (Myers') 
some nine miles above Pittsburgh, which he served as a private, 
under Captain Joseph Beckett, of the Forks of -Yough settle- 
ment. 

Ko sooner was this brief and inglorious month of service ended, 
than, determined to encounter the perils of Indian warfare, he 
volunteered as a private in Crawford's Campaign of June, 1782 — 
the most prominent incidents and horrors of which are elsewhere 
detailed in these sketches. His captain was John Biggs, Lieuten- 
ant Edward Stewart, Ensign William Crawford, Jr., nephew of the 
Colonel — all of whom fell a prey to the tortures or butcheries of 
the savages. Paull was in the engagement of the 5th of June, on 
the Sandusky prairie. In the retreat, or flight, he went in a squad, 
with five or six others. They were soon surprised, and all, save 
Paull, were killed, or made prisoners. At the Mingo encampment, 
Paull had the misfortune to burn one of his feet severely, and was 
lame throughout the march and retreat. He lost his horse in 
attempting to pass the swamp near the battle ground. "When sur- 
prised in the flight he was very lame, and barefoot. The man at 
his side, on whom he was leaning for assistance, was shot down. 
Paull instantly fled from the path into the woods — an Indian after 
him. He quickly came to a steep, blufi* bank of a creek, down 
which he instinctively leaped, gun in hand. His pursuer declined 
the leap, and with a yell gave up the pursuit. In the descent he 
hurt his lame foot badly ; but having bound it up with part of the 



128 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

ragged nether extremities of his pantaloons, he wandered on ; and 
by betaking himself to fallen trees and crossing his trail occasion- 
ally, he escaped further molestation. For two days, like Doctor 
Knight, he 'subsisted on roots, bark, leaves, berries and young 
birds — very fresh fare, the Colonel used to say, but wholesome. 
He had saved his gun and some ammunition, but he was afraid to 
discharge it, lest its report might be heard by the Indians, and then 
all would be over with him. He was very lame, and had become 
very weak. Having taken some rest, he rose with the dawn and 
resumed his wanderings. Being very hungry, and seeing a deer 
cross his path, he shot it. But he had lost his knife, and the only 
device he could adopt by which to open and remove part of the 
skin and get at some of the flesh, was to cut it with his gun flint 
This he did, and having got a good piece of the round out, he 
went on, eating it raw as he traveled. At length he came to the 
Ohio, near Wheeling.^ The river was too high and he too feeble 
to swim it. He therefore constructed a raft, with drift logs and 
grape vine, launched it, and thus got out of the Indian country. 
Having landed on the southern shore, he caught an old horse which 
he found wandering about the river hills, and bestrode him. After 
a little equestrian recreation, he got into a path which led him to a 
settler's cabin. Here he was hospitably received and for some 
days entertained. And after regaining some strength and clothes, 
the settler kindly sent a boy and horse to help him home. 

In 1784 or '85 he commanded a company of scouts or rangers, 
on a tour to Ryersou's station, on the western frontier of, now 
Greene county. 

In 1790 he served with honor, and in the most dangerous position, 
as a Major of Pennsylvania Militia in Gen. Harmar's Campaign 
against the Indians at the head of the Maumee, as elsewhere rela- 
ted in a subsequent sketch, but we are unable to give any further 
particulars of this important service. History and tradition both 
accord to Major Paull, in this perilous march and series of encoun- 
ters, the character of a brave and good officer, although most of 
the troops belonging to his command have been sadly traduced. 

With Harmar's Campaign he, we believe, ended his soldiering, 
except that in after life he was elected colonel of a regiment on 



^ It is related that Paull struck the Ohio opposite Wheeling Island early in the morn- 
ing, in a fog so dense as to prevent his seeing the Island. He discovered which -way the 
current ran, and wandered up the river to the mouth of Short creek, where he made his 
raft and crossed. 



CH. VII.] COL. JAMES PAULL. 129 

the peace establishment. Having married, tie settled down to the 
pursuits of domestic and agricultural life, in which he was eminently 
successful. He raised a large and highly respectable family — seven 
sons, James, George,^ John, Archibald, Thomas, William and 
Joseph, and one daughter, Martha, wife of William Walker. He 
had some concern in the iron manufacture, and was occasionally, 
in middle life, a down-the-river trader. But he was a lover of 
home, its quiet cares and enjoyments. He was never ambitious of 
office. The only one he ever held, or sought, in civil life, was that 
of Sheriff of the county, which he tilled from 1793 to '96, with 
credit and success. This gave him something to do with the 
" Whiskey Boys," and he had to hang John McFall for the murder 
of John Chadwick.* 

We have said that Col. Paull was generous and devoted to his 
friends. Of this w^e could give many illustrations. One must 
suffice. Having become heavily bound for a friend, he had to sell 
some cherished lands in the West to enable him to pay the liability. 
At length it was paid. Thereupon a more cautious friend remarked 
to him, "I suppose. Colonel, you are now cured of endorsing." 
" jSTo," he replied quickly, "I will endorse for my friends when I 
please." 

Such was Col. James Paull, a man of heroic and generous im- 
pulses, of integrity and truth ; which he evinced by many deeds 
and few words. 



* George Paull was Colonel of the 27th Regiment U. S. Infantry (Ohio troops) in the 
war of 1812, and served bravely under Gen. Harrison in the Northwest army. 

4 This was the only case of capital punishment ever executed in Fayette county. The 
killing was on the 10th November, 1704. Chadwick kept the old White Horse tavern 
where James Hughes now lives, about a mile northeast of Brownfieldtown. McFall 
was drunk, and his first purpose was to kill one Martin Myers, a constable, but Chadwick 
interfering, and having shut the door on him, he fell on him and beat him with a club, 
from which he died two days afterwards. McFall, after conviction, broke jail and 
escaped, and was on his way to Lancaster to get a pardon, when he was apprehended at 
Hagerstown. He was hung on land of Gen. Douglass, in the woods between the old 
Zadok Springer mansion and Wm. Crawford's, about a mile north of the court house. 
The place is yet known as the "gallows field." Col. Paull did not hang him himself, 
but employed one Edward Bell as executioner — father of the late Edward Bell. See the 
case reported in Addison's Reports, 255. 

9 



130 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 



COL. GEORGE WILSON. 

Our materials for a memoir of this ancient worthy are very 
scanty, being little more than what appears elsewhere in these 
sketches. He was a Virginian, from the town or vicinity of Staun- 
ton, Augusta county, in which he owned property ; also in Romney, 
Hampshire county. He had evidently been a military officer of 
the King, in that colony, doubtless in the French war. The proof 
of this is, that in the inventory of his goods and chattels appraised 
and filed in our Register's ofiice, are a scarlet coat, breeches and vest, 
valued at £15, besides an American or Revolutionary " Regimental 
coat," valued at<£40, and plush breeches and vest at X15. Another 
proof is in one of his own letters to Major Luke Collins, copied in 
part in our "Boundary Controversy," wherein he says — "we had 
the happiness of joining in sentiment in the Colony of Virginia, 
and as I may say, even wading through blood in supporting the 
cause of our country, heart in hand." And in his previous letter 
to Arthur St. Clair, referred to in the same sketch, he says, "I have 
in my little time in life taken the oath of allegiance to his 
Majesty seven times." 

He seems to have come into this country as early as 1769, and 
settled at the Mouth of George's creek, becoming the owner of the 
lands on both sides of it for a considerable* distance up that stream, 
as well as other adjacent lands, including JSlk Hills, recently the 
home of J. W, Nicholson, Esq., now owned by Michael Franks, 
and several other tracts in this county. It is said he first came into 
this region at the head of a party to reclaim some white prisoners 
from the Indians, in which he succeeded ; and being pleased with 
the country about the mouths of Cheat and George's creek, soon 
afterwards returned and took up his residence. 

Col. AVilson figured conspicuously as an active and influential 
Pennsylvanian in the Boundary Controversy, as is apparent from 
our sketch of that important dispute. This is the more remarkable, 
as he was by nativity, interest, and family associations, a Virginian. 
When Westmoreland county was erected, in 1773, he was appointed 
Toy the Penn Assembly one of the trustees for selecting a county seat; 
and in the same year he was appointed a Justice of the Peace. 

When the eighth Pennsylvania Regiment of the Line was formed 
at Kittanning, in the fall of 1770, he was appointed by Congress, 
upon the recommendation of the Pennsylvania convention, its 
Xieut. Colonel — his son John being one of its Captains. He did 



CH. VII.] COL. ALEXANDER M'CLEAN. 131 

not live to distinguish himself in battle; but died in Quibbletown, 
N. J., near Amboy, early in April, 1777, from pleurisy, brought on 
by exposure and overmarching, and was buried there. On the 
10th of September, 1776, before going into the service, he made 
his last will, disposing of his estates — lands, lots, negroes, &c., 
with great precision. He had three sons, John, William George,^ 
and Samuel ; and six daughters, Agnes Humphreys, Elizabeth 
Kincade,^ Jane, Mary Ann, Sarah and Phebe. Jane was thrice 
married — first to a Mr. Bullitt, then to the father of Hon. "Wm. G. 
Hawkins, formerly State Senator from Greene and Washington, 
now of Allegheny county ; and lastly to Hon. John Minor, long au 
Associate Judge of Greene county, thereby becoming the mother 
of L. L. Minor, Esq., of that county, and of Mrs. John Crawford, 
of Greensboro. To her he gave the land now in Nicholson 
township, recently owned by John and Samuel Ache. We cannot 
trace the other descendants of the old Colonel. 



COL. ALEXANDER M'CLEAN. 

This veteran Surveyor, and Register and Recorder of Fayette 
county, came into this region of country in 1769, as an Assistant 
Surveyor to his brothers Archibald and Moses, the regular Deputies 
for this part of the Province. The opening of the Land Office, on 
the 4th of April, 1769, for the acquisition of lands in the " New 
Purchase," gave employment to a great number of surveyors. 
Being unmarried, he seems, for several years, to have changed his 
residence to accommodate his employment. His earliest local 
habitation in the West was perhaps in Stony Creek Glades, in 
Somerset, then Cumberland county. In 1772 we find him assessed 
as a Single Freeman, in Tyrone township, then Bedford county. 
He was married in 1775, in the Glades, near Stoystown, to Sarah 
Holmes, and in the Spring of 1776, removed to the vicinity of 



1 Elected Justice of the Peace for Springhill in 1789. He was the founder of New 
Geneva, by the name of Wilson's Port. 

^ Wife of Samuel Kincade, who settled just at the junction of Cheat and Monongahela, 
north side, in Springhill. This land, with half the ferry rights, was devised to 
him by his father-in-law. This Samuel Kincade narrowly escaped being killed while 
with a party of Militia, on Ten Mile creek, when marching to Wheeling, in' Dunmoi-e's 
war in 1774. Captain M'Clure commanded the party, and Kincade was Lieutenant. 
They were attacked by four Indians of Logan's party, and the Captain killed and Kin- 
cade wounded. Gen. St. Clair said "it would have been no great matter if Aehad been 
killed.^' 



132 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIT. 

Uniontown. In the Spring of 1779 lie moved into the town, and 
there continued to reside until his death, on the 7th of December, 
1834, aged a little over eighty-eight years, having been born on the 
20th November, 1746. 

He was a native of York county, Pennsylvania, being the 
youngest of seven brothers, of whom Moses and Archibald 
were perhaps the eldest, and who, besides being the first Deputy 
Surveyors in this part of Pennsylvania, were men of distinction — 
especially the latter, in old mother York and her daughter 
Adams. James and Samuel M'Clean, who settled very early 
near the base of Laurel Hill, in IST. Union township, were 
also brothers. James was the only one of the seven who was 
not a surveyor. Archibald, Moses, Samuel and Alexander were 
with Mason and Dixon in running the celebrated line between 
Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia, in 1766-'7, Alexander 
being then only about twenty-one years old. Archibald had had a 
good deal to do in running the lines between Maryland and Dela- 
ware, and between Maryland and Pennsylvania, before Mason and 
'Dixon were employed, and Alexander accompanied him. Such 
were the schools and instructors he enjoyed in acquiring the art of 
surveying. 

Although Col. M'Clean was, with other Assistants, busily em- 
ployed in executing orders of survey in this part of the Province, 
from the summer of 1769, yet the earliest survey executed by him 
as a deputy, that we can find, within the limits of Fayette county, 
was in 1772. Prior to that year the returns are all signed by Arch- 
bald and Moses ; who also, within that year and afterwards, signed 
returns as deputies. It is probable, however, that Alexander was 
a regular Deputy Surveyor at an earlier period, but operated in 
what is now the Somerset county part of the New Purchase. We 
find him making surveys at Turkey Foot in 1769. 

In 1776 he was one of the Westmoreland members of the 
Assembly — the first after the revolt. In September of that year 
he was one of the Justices of the Peace for that county, appointed 
by the Revolutionary State Convention. He was also a member 
of the Assembly for the year 1782-'3; the same by which Fayette 
county was erected. Indeed he was elected for its accomplishment ; 
an efibrt at the previous session having failed by reason of the oppo- 
sition from the Northern parts of Westmoreland. The reason 
assigned was if the new county was erected, the old one could not 
support itself — the common argument in such cases. On this occa- 
sion it was attempted to be sustained by the fact that the territory 



CH. VII.] COL. ALEXANDER m'CLEAN. 133 

proposed to be dissevered was the only part of the county exempt 
from Indian depredations — to which fact, rendered more impressive 
by the burning of Hannastown, in July, 1782, Fayette county owes 
its early erection. Long prior to this — in 1778, Col. M'Cleau had 
urged Henry Beeson to lay out Uniontown, with a view to a county 
seat ; which he did, and the Colonel surveyed it for him, providing 
a lot for the county buildings at the elbow, adjacent to which, on the 
east, he bought a lot, to which he removed in 1779, and where he 
died. 

The State Land Office being in effect closed from 1776 to 1784, 
no Deputy Surveyors were needed. For a while, therefore, his 
occupation was gone. In the meantime he took to "soldiering,' 
then the great business of the country. We believe the Colonel 
was never a soldier of the Line, but served occasionally in the 
frontier rangers. He was also in M'Intosh's campaign of 1780 ; 
but in what capacity, or how he got there, we are at some loss to 
know. Pennsylvania sent no men into that campaign — Virginia 
did ; though many of them were from this, the disputed territory. 
Of such were those we have named in our notice of that expedition.i 
When one of them, Col. Robert Beall, of Bullskin, a zealous Vir- 
ginia partizan, was appointed County Lieutenant, in 1784, great 
indignation was evinced by the old Pennsylvania adherents. Col. 
M' Clean was called upon to write to the Sup. Ex. Council on the 
subject. In writing to President Dickinson, on the 16th of July, 
1784, he says : " With those very people who are said to have had so 
little share in the burthen of the war, I have shared the fatigues of the 
most difficult campaign that has been carried on in this country, 
and was a witness to both their sufferings and fortitude. Many of 
them have been in the Continental service, and Col. Beall in 
particular, during a great part of the war." This, we believe, 
refers to M'Intosh's campaign. If so, then the Colonel served 
under the Virginia standard ; although in the Boundary Contro- 
versy he was a decided Pennsylvanian. Of this there is clear proof 
in his correspondence concerning running the Temporary Boundary 
and the Kew State project, some of which will be found in our 
sketch of those events.^ In going with " Virginians" into M'Intosh's 
campaign, he went as a soldier and patriot, not as a partizan.' 



^ See Chap. X — " Revolutionan/ and Indian Wars." 
^ See Chapt. IX. — ^^ Boundary Controversi/." 

3 In July, 1781, he wrote a letter to his brother Archibald, of York, informing him 
of the high-handed measures adopted by Gen. Clark and the Virginia party, in reference 



134 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

In 1782, Col. M'Clean was appointed a Sub-Lieutenant for the 
county of Westmoreland, in the room of Col. Edward Cook, pro- 
moted to be Lieutenant upon the death of Col. Lochry. To this 
appointment he owed his rank of Colonel. 

In 1781, Col. M'Clean was appointed by the Sup. Ex. Council of 
Pennsylvania as the artist, in conjunction with a similar appointee 
from Virginia, to run the temporary boundary lines which had 
been agreed upon in 1779. A vexatious succession of disappoint- 
ments and difficulties delayed the execution of this task until the 
winter of 1782-3, when he performed it, in connection with 
Joseph JSTeville, of Virginia, an eminent surveyor, who was after- 
wards a member of Congress from that State. They run out our 
Southern boundary from where Mason and Dixon stopped, at the 
Indian war path on Dunkard creek, in Q-reene, and the "Western 
line, to the Ohio river.* Although the Council had at first offered 
only twenty shillings per day "and found," yet they afterwards 
resolved that "taking into consideration the trouble Mr. M'Clean 
has had in running said line, and the accuracy [?] with which the 
same hath been done, he be allowed thirty-five shillings per day ;" 
— being $4.67 — a daily pay to which he ever afterwards adhered in 
his charges as a surveyor. 



to recruits for his projected campaiga of that year. The letter was sent to the Sup. Ex. 
Council, and we gather its import from his brother's account of it; who, in writing to 
the Council from Yorktown, August 13th, 1781, says: " I have received no letter from 
him since, but hath certain accounts from an inhabitant in those parts, who left my 
brother's house about ten days ago, that Alexander is drafted to go with General 
Clark, and that he was actually gone to Fort Pitt on the day before the person left home 
who informed me. * * I am well assured he must have went with great reluctance on 
any Virginia expedition." This turned out to be a mistake — at least Alexander did not 
go, for we find him in Uniontown on the 13th September, ready to go out to survey the 
Temporary line with Virginia. 

* These surveyors, it seems, run the Southern line a little too far, perhaps a mile or 
more. This was no fault of theirs ; for they were instructed to begin where Mason and 
Dixon stopped in 1767, "at the second crossing of Dunkard creek," and extend the line 
tiventy-threc miles. The true distance required to accomplish the five degrees of longitude 
from the river Delaware, (266 miles, 24 chains, 80 links,) was a little less than twenty- 
two miles. So the astronomical surveyors of 1784 determined. It is said also that 
Messrs. M'Clean and Neville deflected their due North line a little too much to the East, 
at its Southern end ; for they seem to have struck the Ohio at the right place. Among 
the consequences of the error first stated was, that some Philadelphia gentlemen — the 
Cooks, and perhaps others, who wished to appropriate some western lands between the 
dates of the two runnings, had their warrants laid, in now Greene county, abutting upon 
the temporary line ; and when the line came to be finally run in 1784, parts of their 
surveys were excinded and thrown into Virginia, without any title to rest upon. We 
think Pennsylvania should have refunded them the cost — which perhaps they would 
rather have yet than the lands. 



CH. VII.] COL, ALEXANDER m'CLEAN. 135 

Upon the erection of Fayette county in September, 1783, Col. 
M'Clean sought the appointment of Prothonotary and Clerk of the 
Courts. Gen. Douglass was the successful applicant. The Colonel 
was, however, on the 31st of October, 1783, appointed by the 
Council to be Presiding Justice of the Fayette Court of Common 
Pleas and Orphans' Court. In that capacity he presided in those 
Courts at their first sittings in December, 1783, and until April, 
1789, when Col. Cook succeeded him for a brief period. He was 
also, on the 6th of December, 1783, appointed to the offices of Regis- 
ter and Recorder of the county of Fayette — offices which he filled 
uninterrup,tedly until his death, in 1834, amid all the political vicissi- 
tudes of that long period. He was an expert and elegant pensman, 
and could crowd more words, distinctly written, into a line, than 
most modern writers will put in three. 

In March, 1784, he was one of three Justices of the Peace, elec- 
ted in February, commissioned for Union township,^ to serve for 
seven years, under the old- Constitution of 1776. He does not 
appear ever to have done much business in that office, beyond 
that of presiding in the Courts when at home. He had too many 
offices. 

When the Land Office was re-opened in 1784, under the Com- 
monwealth, there was a perfect avalanche of warrants to be executed 
in this country. Col. M'Clean was thereupon appointed Deputy 
Surveyor for a district embracing all of Fayette county, the town- 
ship of Rostraver in "Westmoreland, which then included what, 
after 1788, became Elizabeth in Allegheny, and the townships of 
Turkey-foot, Milford, and that part of Quemahoning lying south- 
ward of the great road to Fort Pitt, in Bedford county, afterwards 
Somerset. His commission was renewed for the same district on 
the 12th of January, 1790. How long he continued to serve so 
large a territory we do not know. It was, however, contracted to 
Fayette county alone, for which he held the appointment until 
1825, when he declined its renewal. He had numerous assistants, 
among them Levi Stephens and William Hart. He, also, in the 
earlier years of his service, executed numerous surveys beyond his 
district limits, in what are now Allegheny, Greene, Washington and 
Westmoreland counties. 

Besides his official duties at home, he performed numerous extra 



5 See postscript of February 6th to Gen. Douglass' letter of February 2, 1784, appended 
to memoir of bim, postea ; — and " Outlines of Civil and Political History " — Chapter 
XVI. 



136 , T-HE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIT. 

duties as surveyor, abroad. lu 1V73, he was one of the com- 
missioners, appointed by the act erecting Westmoreland, to run 
the line which separated it from Bedford. He performed the same 
office for Fayette in 1784, after its severance from Westmoreland, 
and, in conjunction with Gabriel Blakeney and John Baddolet, for 
Greene in 1796, when it was dismembered from Washington. 

After the purchase from the Indians of IsTorthwestern Pennsyl- 
vania, by the second treat}^ of Fort Stanwix, he was, in 1783, 
appointed to survey District 'No. 1 of the Depreciation lands, north 
and west of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, on our Western boun- 
dary. The fulfillment of this appointment required him to deter- 
mine where that boundary was; and from his instructions, now 
before us, dated in August, 1784, we infer that, somehow, he had 
in the previous winter, ascertained that line for some distance north 
of the Ohio. The district was a parallelogram of twelve miles 
wide between the Ohio river and the latitude of the mouth of 
Mogulbuctetim (Redbank). He was at the same time appointed to 
survey the reserved tracts of 3000 acres each, opposite Pittsburgh, 
and at the mouth of Big Beaver, which he did in this and the next 
year. 

In the Spring of 1786, Col. M'Clean, in connection with Col. 
Andrew Porter,*^ were appointed by Pennsylvania, to run, by 
astronomical observations, &c , and mark, the Western boundary 
of the State, from the Ohio to Lake Erie. They began in June, 
and, it seems, some fifty miles north of the Ohio, near where the 
line strikes the Shenango — near Sharon, and finished the work on 
the 4th of October. It is probable, however, that they afterwards 
retraced and marked by a "vista" and stones, the Southern part of 
the line to the Ohio: for Col. M'Clean writes from Uniontown, 
October 10th, 1784, that " having visited my family after my return 
from Lake Erie, I now proceed to finish the line of division 
between the certificate [Depreciation] and donation lands, and lai/ 
out the residue of the lots in District No. 1;" — meaning, we presume, 
those abutting on the Western boundary, which he could not 
do until it was authoritatively fixed. 

While the State was pursuing the project of making a "good 
wagon road" from Shippensburg to Fort Pitt, Col. M'Clean was, 
in November, 1789, appointed one of the commissioners to make 



6 Father of Ex-Governor David R. Porter, who had been commissary to the Boundary 
Commissioners in 1784, and who afterwards assisted in running our Northern Boundary 
with New York. 



CH. VII.] COL. ALEXANDER m'CLEAN.' • 13T 

the location from Bedford to Pittsburgh. He began it at Bedford, 
in December, and, as the other two commissioners failed to attend, 
he went through it himself 

Besides all these, Col. M'Clean, in naiddle life, executed numer- 
ous other special official duties of smaller moment, but requiring 
skill and fidelity. He was also, in 1783, together with the Ret. 
James Sutton, appointed a trustee of Dickinson College, Carlisle, 
by the Act of Assembly which founded that venei'able institution — 
an office which he for a while filled more dejure than de facto. 

Col. M'Clean was a quiet, unobtrusive man, devoted to the duties 
of his offices, and caring for little else, than to discharge them with 
diligence, accuracy and fidelity. He held office longer — from 1772 
to 1834 — than any other man who has ever resided in Western 
Pennsylvania; and it is not probable that in this respect he will 
ever have a successor, so unyielding is the rotatory tendency of 
modern "progress." As Register, Recorder and Surveyor, for 
more than half a century, he had been conversant with all the 
estates, titles and lands of the county, with all their vacancies, 
defects and modes of settlement ; yet with all these opportunities 
of acquiring wealth, he died in comparative poverty — a sad monu- 
ment to his integrity. He wrote more deeds and wills at seven and 
sixpence each, ($1) and dispensed more gratuitous counsel in 
ordinary legal affairs, than, at reasonable fees, would enrich a 
modern scrivener or counselor. 

He left a numerous family of sons and daughters, most of whom, 
with their descendants, are now dispersed in the Western States. 
A few yet remain in Uniontown and vicinity. The late Thomas 
Hadden, Esq., long a favorite attorney and justice of Uniontown, 
was a son-in-law. 



' For the benefit of our geometrical readers we annex the method adopted by the 
Colonel of determining the direct course from Bedford to Pittsburgh : — "In order to gain 
the true situation of this place [Bedford] I went to the 158th mile post, standing about 
10 perches west of the road from Bedford to Fort Cumberland ; from thence by a series 
of courses, traversed the Valley of Cumberland to this place, and find it to be 19 miles 
290 perches north of Mason & Dixon's Line, and 10 miles 86 perches east of the above 
mile post. And my memory aiding me in the situation of Pittsburgh, I proceeded to 
calculation to find a course to Pittsburgh ; and estimate it to stand 25,685 perches west, 
and 9,830 perches north of this place, being north 69° 27'' west, 27,432 perches = to 
85 miles, 232 perches ; which course will, I think, lead me at least into the neighborhood 
of Pittsburgh." 



138 THE MONONGAHBLA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 



JOHN SMILIE. 

Our labors would be unpardonably incomplete without a memoir, 
meager though it be, of this ancient political favorite of the people 
of Fayette, to whom thev steadfastly and almost uninterruptedly 
adhered, from even before their separate county existence to his 
death — a period of nearly thirty years. 

Mr. Smilie was a native of Ireland, and came to America when 
a young man, shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, but 
in what year we cannot asce^jtain. He settled in Lancaster county, 
Pa., and at once espoused the cause of American liberty. He 
rapidly acquired the confidence of his co-patriots, and soon became 
a leader in the resistance which they resolved and executed against 
the tyrannies of the King and Parliament. 

Being one of the Committee of Safety of Lancaster county, we 
find him, in June 1776, a member of the Provincial Conference of 
County Committees of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, which 
declared formally the sundering of the ties which hitherto bound the 
colony to the parent power, by resolving " to form a new Govern- 
ment for this Province, upon the authority of the people only." 
This conference called and provided for the Convention which 
formed our first State Constitution — that of 1776. 

In 1778, and again in 1779, he was elected one of the Represen- 
tatives of Lancaster county in the Assembly, of which he was an 
active and useful member. 

Having married Miss Janet Porter, a daughter, we believe, of 
Col. Thomas Porter, a distinguished citizen of Lancaster county, 
he was induced, in 1780, to seek a home in the West for his rising 
family. In that, or the subsequent year, he removed to Fayette, 
then "Westmoreland county ; and after looking round for a while, 
eventually bought an improvement from old Joseph Huston, on the 
north side of the Yough river, about five miles below Connells- 
ville, where he settled and where he henceforth resided until his 
death. He perfected his title to the tract — about 400 acres, in 1786. 
It was held by the family until recently, and is now owned by 
Stewart Strickler, Geo. Dawson, and others. The Pittsburgh and 
Connellsville Rail Road passes through it. 

Mr. Smilie's energies and good sense soon gave him prominence 
in his new abode. In the fall election of 1783, he was chosen, 
along with the celebrated William Findley, to represent West- 
moreland in the Council of Censors — an anomalous revisory body 



CH. VII.] JOHN SMILIE. 139 

provided for by the Constitution of 1776, It was to consist of two 
members from each city and county, to be chosen in 1783, and 
every seventh year thereafter, and to preserve its existence for one 
year if necessary. It was a kind of Grand Jury for the State. 
Its duties were to inquire and present — whether the Constitution 
had been kept inviolate ; whether all officers did their duty and no 
more ; whether taxes were justly laid, collected and expended. It 
could pass censures, order impeachments and advise the repeal of 
laws ; and, by a vote of two-thirds, call a convention to alter the 
Constitution, to meet two years thereafter. The first Council — 
the only one ever chosen, sat in Philadelphia from IN'ovember, 1783, 
to January 21st, 1784, and again from June Ist to September 25th, 
1784. They were rather discordant, and fruitless of any other 
good than affording convincing proofs to the people of the defect- 
iveness of that old and hastily framed Constitution. Indeed, to do 
this was one of the principal purposes for which the Council was 
provided ; but they accomplished it in a very different manner from 
what was originally intended. 

At the first session of the Council, the friends of change, or 
reform, were in the ascendency, but in the summer session of 1784, 
by the accession of Judge George Bryan, of Philadelphia, the 
reputed father of the Constitution of '76, and other new or substi- 
tuted members, the conservative party prevailed. Mr. Smilie acted 
uniformly with the latter, opposing most pertinaciously the proposed 
amendments of the Constitution. By that old instrument, the 
Legislative power was vested exclusively in one body — the Assembly, 
without check or veto. The Executive power reposed in a Supreme 
Executive Council of one member from each county ; and the 
judicial tenure, from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
down to Justices of the Peace, was for terms of seven years — the 
Judges being chosen by the Assembly, and the Justices by the 
freeholders of the townships — all commissioned by the Ex. Council. 
The powers of these separate branches of the Government were 
illy defined, and confusedly interlocked. It was proposed to make 
a radical change — to add another branch to the Legislature, denomi- 
nated a Legislative Council, similar to the Senate — to abolish the 
Sup. Ex. Council, and vest the Executive power in a Governor; and 
to make the judicial tenure during good behavior. Mr. Smilie 
opposed all these changes, uniting with the minority at the first 
session in denouncing the Governor and Senate feature because "it 
tended to introduce among the citizens new and aristocratic ranks, 
with a Chief Magistrate at their head, vested with powers which 



140 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

exceed those which fall to the ordinary lot of kings." In this he 
acted with his colleague, Mr. Findley, and with Messrs. Edgar and 
M'Dowell of Washington, and others of the then Democratic, or weak 
government opinions, and in opposition to the views of Fred. Aug. 
Mnhlenburg, Generals Wayne and St. Clair, and others, members 
of the Council. In these respects, however, Mr. Smilie's opinions 
underwent a thorough change in a few years ; for, in the convention 
of 1789, which framed the State Constitution of 1790, he co-oper- 
ated decidedly with the dominant party in favor of a Governor, 
with the veto power as it now is, two legislative branches, and a 
judicial tenure during life, or good behavior, although in the last 
he stood opposed to his distinguished colleague, Albert Gallatin, 
with whom he generally acted. 

In 1784, Mr. Smilie became the first elected member of Assembly 
from Fayette. He was re-elected in 1785. 

In 1786 he was elected for the term of three years, the second 
Fayette member of the Supreme Executive Council — John Woods, 
of Uniontown, having been chosen in 1784 for two years, and 
Isaac Meason, the elder, having been, in 1783, elected for three 
years from Westmoreland and Fayette combined, though actually 
dissevered at the time of the election. 

Mr. Smilie's career in these State bodies,^ although not marked 



1 "We notice one movement of Mr. Smilie, in the Supreme Executive Council, to -wliich 
we confess our dislike. General St. Clair, after having been the champion of Pennsyl- 
vania in the contest for the dominion of her Western territory, against Virginia ; and 
after having, with acknowledged honor, skill and bravery, borne the rank and perils of 
Major General through almost the whole of the Revolutionary war, thereby entitling 
himself if not to the friendly regard, at least to the gratitude and liberality of every 
true Pennsylvanian, had become so poor as to be obliged to earn the sustenance of him- 
self and family, in 1786-7, by the laborsof a licensed Auctioneer in the city of Philadelphia? 
then by no means the lucrative business that it has since become. He was at the same 
time a member, elected by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, of the Confederation Congress, 
of which he was, in February '87, elected President. The unkind movement of Mr. 
Smilie is thus recorded in the Minutes of the Supreme Ex. Council, April 13<A, 1787: 
"Motion by Mr. Smilie — 'That Arthur St. Clair, Esq., be removed from his present 
office of Auctioneer for the city of Philadelphia, and that Council proceed to the appoint- 
ment of a person in his stead.' A postponement of this motion (generally) was moved 
by Mr. Muhlenlurg, and negatived. Mr. Redick, (of Washington Co.) then moved the 
postponement of it for the purpose of taking up the following;, viz: ' Whereas the Hon. 
Arthur St. Clair, Auctioneer for the city of Philadelphia, hath lately/ been advanced to a 
high station by the United States, in Congress assembled, and as it is the opinion of this 
Board that his office of Auctioneer is incompatible with his present dignified station, 
therefore. Resolved : That the said Arthur St. Clair be no longer continued in said office; 
and that an Auctioneer be appointed to fill the vacancy.' " This motion prevailed, and 
he was removed. The "incompatible, dignified station" could be nothing else than the 



OH. VII.] JOHN SMILIE. 141 

by any brilliant prominence, was characterized by great diligence, 
integrity and usefulness, and by unabated devotedness to tbe wants, 
private and public, of his constituents. These were the traits of 
character which gave him such a strong and enduring hold upon 
their confidence and suffrages. 

In 1789, Mr. Smilie was, with Albert Gallatin, chosen to repre- 
sent Fayette in the State Convention which framed the Constitution 
of 1790. This body sat at Philadelphia, from N"ovember 24th, 
1789, to February 26th, 1790, and again, from August 9th to Sep- 
tember 2d, 1790. It was a very grave and able body, having in it 
the embodiment of the learning and wisdom, lay and legal, of the 
Commonwealth. Among its members were Judge Wilson and 
William Lewis, Esq., of Philadelphia — the afterwards Governors 
Mifflin, M'Kean, Snyder and Heister, and Judge Charles Smith. 
Judge Addison, James Ross, John Hoge and David Redick were 
the Washington county members. Westmoreland was represented 
by William Findley and William Todd. Allegheny sent General 
John Gibson. Thomas Mifilin was President of the Convention, 
and William Findley was chairman of the committee which reported 
the original draft of the new Constitution, associated therein with 
Judges Wilson, Addison and Smith, and with Messrs. James Ross, 
William Lewis, and others. Who prepared the draft is uure- 
vealed. 

Although the call of this Convention had been long resisted in 
the Council of Censors and in the Assembly, and was finally 



Presidency of Congress, of which he had been for nearly two years a member ; for he 
■was not appointed Governor of the North-west Territory until the succeeding October. 
Mr. Redick's preamble was a friendly act, to give a plausible cloaking to a "foregone 
conclusion ;" but the jnco/njpa^iSi'ZtVy was neither constitutional, legal, orperceptible. To how 
many ungenerous cruelties was that brave old soldier subjected during his long and eventful 
life ? The only apology for this one was that the General was in arrears to the State in 
the payment of his auction duties. But the Treasury neither lost, nor was in danger 
of losing, anything. Mr. Smilie seems to have allowed his antagonism to the politics of 
Gen. Clair (who was a decided Washingtonian Federalist) to interfere with his habitude 
of justness and liberality. For when, in 1811, the General, in the extremity of want, 
asked Congress to remunerate him for moneys advanced, while in the Eevoliitionary 
service, Mr. Smilie resisted it, although his friend Findley, of Westmoreland, nobly 
advocated it. We think it would have been more commendable in Mr. Smilie to have 
done likewise, and to have said, as did Gen. Ogle, of the Somerset district, in 1817, when 
the same subject was before Congress, — " As to the case of the aged St. Clair, Mr. Ogle 
said, that was a subject which ought not to be mentioned in this House in the face of 
day^-the treatment of that man ought to be spoken of here only in the night ! For his 
part, if there was a statute as strong as brass, or as solid as the pillars of the Capitol, 
he would blow it to powder to do justice to a soldier of the Revolution." 



142 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

opposed in the latter body by a large minority, among whom were 
our then county members, John Gilchrist and Theophilus Phillips, 
yet in the Convention, on all the leading features of change, already 
indicated, the vote was nearly unanimous, on some of them entirely 
so. The vote on the change of judicial tenure from terms of seven 
years, &c., to during good behavior, was iifty-six to eight ; for two 
Legislative branches, tifty-six to five; for a Governor, unanimous; 
and for the veto power, sixty to four. The Constitution finally 
passed the Convention with but one dissenting voice — George 
Roberts, of Philadelphia. It stood the tests and trials of nearly 
half a century; and it is yet to be determined whether modern 
innovations upon some of its leading provisions are really improve- 
ments. 

The "Debates" of this Convention are not reported. But its 
journal shows that Mr. Smilie acted with the majority on all impor- 
tant questions, generally coinciding with his colleague, though 
occasionally, as on the judicial tenure, differing with him. His 
radical change of views since he was in the Council of Censors, in 
1783, has been already noticed. We regard his course in this par- 
ticular, not as evincing a weakness, or a wish to surrender his 
judgment to the popular current, but as a manifestation of candor 
and good sense. The defects of the Constitution of 76, which had 
worked well enough during the simplicity and harmony of the 
Revolutionary era, became very palpable after 1783, amid the 
growths of selfish interests and political partizanry. Mr. Smilie, 
as well as other sages, saw these defects becoming more and more 
striking and dangerous, and hence most commendably relaxed his 
former equally commendable adherence to the maxim that " govern- 
ments, long established, should not be changed for light and 
transient causes." 

In 1790, Mr. Smilie and John Hoge, of Washington, were elected 
the first State Senators from the District composed of Fayette and 
Washington counties. The term for which he was elected was four 
years; but having, in 1792, been elected to the third Congress of 
the United States, which was to meet in December, 1793, he 
resigned the last year of the Senatorial term, and the late Judge 
James Finley was elected in his stead. 

In 1792, Mr. Smilie was one of a general ticket for thirteen 
members elected, from Pennsylvania, for the third Congress, under 
the new Federal Constitution of 1789 ; — Thomas Scott, of Wash- 
ington, having been our member, on a general ticket for eight 
members, elected to the first Congress, and William Findley, of 



CH. VII.] JOHN SMILIE. 143 

Westmoreland, our member, elected in 1791, to tlie second Congress, 
for the District composed of Fayette and Westmoreland. For the 
fourth and fifth Congresses, elected in 1794 and '96, Mr. Smilie 
gave way to his friend Findley, who represented the same District.^ 
In 1798 and 1800 Mr. Findley reciprocated the friendly "non- 
intervention," and Mr. Smilie resumed the representation of the 
District. In 1801 Fayette and Greene were made the 9th District, 
from which Mr. Smilie was successively returned in 1802-'4-'6-'8- 
'10-'12. He died at the city of Washington, while attending the 
second session of the twelfth Congress, on the 29th December. 
1812, and was, on the 31st, interred, with the customary honors, 
in the Congressional Cemetery, where his remains yet repose, 
designated by one of the uniform monuments which Congress 
erects to deceased members, even though their bodies be removed. 
There are but few additional memorials of Mr. Smilie 's long 
Congressional career which require notice. Reports of the pro- 
ceedings and speeches in Congress, during that period, were far 
from being as copious as they have since become ; and very little 
can be gathered of the sayings and doings of the members from the 
journals. These exhibit Mr. Smilie as generally acting with the 
anti-federal, or republican party, of which he was at all times a 
consistent member and leader. In the sessions of the third Con- 



" Mr. Findley, after the severance of Fayette and Westmoreland in the arrangement of 
Congressional Districts, continued to represent the Westmoreland District from 1803 to 
1817, when he retired. He became the patriarchal member of the House. He died at 
his residence, near Youngstown, in April, 1821. He was an Irishman, and we believe 
by occupation, originally, a weaver. He had been a captain of the Pennsylvania Line 
in the American Revolution, and settled in Westmoreland at an early day. He was a 
man of vigorous and active intellect, and a good debater. These endowments gave him 
great prominence in all the deliberative bodies of which he was a member. He was 
moreovera very decided partizan, of the Republican or Anti-Federal school, and mingled 
with his political tenets and deportment considerable ultraism and acrimony. But his 
ability, uprightness and consistency held him firmly in the confidence of his party and 
friends, who, during his political career, were constantly in the ascendant in his Disti'ict. 
His complicity with the "Whiskey Insurrection " induced him, soon after its suppression, 
to write its history. The book bears the impress of haste and passion ; its leading purposes 
seeming to be to attack Gen. Hamilton and defend himself. Yet the work is valuable 
as the version of a conspicuous cotemporary and actor. 

Most modern compilers of political history and statistics confound him with the 
William Findlay of Franklin county, who, from 1817 to 1820, was Governor of Penn- 
sylvania, and from 1821 to 1827, a Senator in Congress. They were very different men. 
Gov. Findlay, we believe, was never a member of the lower House of Congress. 

In Garland's Life of John Randolph, Findley is represented to have been habitually 
intemperate while in Congress. The statement has some support from tradition. 



144 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

^# gress — in 1793-'4-'5, the first of which he was a member, party 
affiliatious were repressed by the almost venerated fame and wisdom 
of President Washington. Towards the close of his Presidency, 
however, the party antagonisms, which had been gradually grow- 
ing ever since the formation of the Constitution, — naj', since the 
close of the Revolution, became fully developed. And perhaps no 
event contributed more aliment to their growth than the " Whiskey 
Insurrection " of 1793-'4 in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and the 
financial policy of Secretary Hamilton, which was, apparently, its 
immediate provocative. 

Mr. Smilie was not in Congress when the Excise laws were passed, 
nor during the fervors of the "rebellion." His opposition to the 
policy of those laws is, however, well attested. But he was against 
unlawful resistance. As a private citizen at home, he took no 
very prominent part in the troubles of 1792-'3-'4.^ His friend and 
compeer, William Findley makes but little mention of him in his 
history of those events. Indeed he is known to have pursued a 
conservative and conciliatory course — sympathizing with the resist- 
ants, yet doing nothing offensive to the Government, though strongly 
suspected. Mr. Findley says that great efforts were made by "the 
Secretary" (Hamilton) to implicate him, as a worthy victim, but 
unsuccessfully. Doubtless he followed the current of popular 
opposition, but kept in the middle of the stream, exposing himself 
neither to submergence by resistance, nor to danger by collision 
with the headlands and shore bushes. jSTotwithstanding this, his 
influences were peaceful and commendable. Indeed, amid the 
turgid popular phrenzy which then prevailed, it may well be doubted 
whether a cautious compliance was not the only medium through 
which its fury could be abated. And although his son Robert, in 
the thoughtless folly of youth, was a participant — whether willful 
or constrained is uncertain — in the first attack on B. Wells' house, 
yet, having been arrested and carried to Philadelphia for trial, he 
escaped conviction, by the weakness of the evidence against him 
and by a doubt cast upon his guiltiness by some proof of an alibi — 
in Kentucky. Doubtless his father's good name and influence were 
strong ingredients in his impunity. 

When Mr. Smilie returned to the second session of the third 



' The verity of this statement is perhaps not impugned by Mr. Smilie's participation 
in the Pittsburgh meeting of August 21, 1792, copied in our sketch of the "Whiskey 
Insurrection," and noticed in our memoir of Albert Gallatin. He was one of its members ; 
but rather an acquiescent than an active one. 



OH. VII.] JOHN SMILIE. 145 

Congress, in November, 1794, the recent insurrection and its sup- 
pression were, of course, prominent topics of Congressional dis- 
cussion. In his annual message, or address,* to Congress at the 
opening of the session. President Washington dwelt at considerable 
length upon the rise, progress and recent suppression of the revolt, 
which he in very plain terms attributed to the malign influence of 
"certain self-created societies." In the responsive cddress which 
in those times Congress was wont to frame and send to the 
President, it was proposed to sa}- to him that, "In tracing ihe 
origin and progress of the insurrection, we entertain no doubt that 
certain combinations of men, careless of consequences, &c., have had 
all the agency you ascribe to them in fomenting this daring out- 
rage, &c." It was moved to amend this clause by inserting between 
the words certain and combinations, the words "self-created societies 
and." This was carried by the federal or administration party, 47 to 
45. To engraft upon this amendment an " exclusion of the con- 
clusion " that these societies were, as charged by Washington and 
Hamilton and their friends, diffused all over the country, it was 
moved further to amend by adding after the words combinations of 
men, the words "m the four western counties of Pennsylvania and 
parts adjacent." For this amendment the wholeanti-federal party 
voted, including Messrs. Findley and Smilie : — thus fastening the 
odious combinations upon the backs of their own constituents — 
Mr. Scott, of Washington, voting the other way. And so deter- 
mined were they upon an exclusive appropriation of these unlawful 
''combinations" for the four counties, that in the very next vote 
they refused even to admit that they were "countenanced by self- 
created societies elsewhere." We cite this as an early illustration of 
the excesses and absurdities into which partyism leads its votaries — 
not more frequently then than now ; many of us even sanctioning, 
if not enacting, vagaries of partizanry which posterity will be as 
ready to smile at, or condemn, as we are to wonder at those of our 
precursors in the race of politics. 

When Mr. Smilie resumed his membership of Congress in 
December, 1799, he found 'the administration or federal party 
still maintaining a firm, but fast-fading ascendency in the national 



* Presidents Washington and Adams always read their annual messages to Congress, 
orally and in person — the House going into the Senate Chamber to hear them. Mr^ 
Jefl'erson discontinued the practice. A reason assigned was that he was not a fluent 
reader or speaker. 

10 



146 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

councils. In the next year, with the election of Mr. Jefferson, it 
passed into a minority, from which it never recovered. 

Mr. Smilie's integrity, firmness and long legislative experience 
hegin now to give him a prominence in the councils and labors of 
Congress. In the session which began in November, 1800, we 
find him, for the first time, on any important committee. He was 
then placed on the Committee of Ways and Means — generally 
regarded as the leading committee of the House. He kept his 
position on this committee in the sessions which began in Decem- 
ber, 1801 and 1802. He was displaced in 1803, but resumed his 
place in October, 1807, and continued to be appointed on that 
committee during every successive session, until 1812. 

In November, 1812, Henry Clay being Speaker of the House, 
Mr. Smilie was appointed Chairman of the Select Committee on 
Foreign Relations, being at that critical juncture — the first year of 
the war with Great Britain — the most important committee in Con- 
gress. Besides the tribute to his merit, implied in the well known 
discernment and zeal for the war possessed by the eminent Speaker 
who appointed him, he was additionally honored by having, as his 
associates on the Committee, men of such masterly minds as Cal- 
houn, Grundy, Macon, Nelson, (of Va.) and Desha, (of Ky.,) with 
whom were Goldsborough, (of Md.,) Harper, (of N. H.,) and Seaver, 
(of Mass.) It is well known that Mr. Clay had great respect for^ 
and influence with Mr. Smilie, which he manifested by once or 
twice visiting him at his residence. 

In connection with this elevated position in the " War Com- 
mittee," we may notice the singular fact that during the preceding 
session of Congress, that of 1811-'12, in which the administration 
of Mr. Madison and its friends were vigorously preparing for the 
bloody issue which even then seemed inevitable, with either France 
or England, or both, Mr. Smilie is very frequently — generally in- 
deed, found voting with the New England Federalists, against 
nearly all the leading war measures which were proposed. This 
shows, at least, his independence of party rule. However, in the 
next session — his last — he came in patl^iotically and zealously to the 
support and prosecution of the war. Whether this change of front, 
and his chairmanship had any of the relations of cause and effect 
in them, is a question not for us to solve. It cannot be supposed 
that Mr. Clay would assign him to that important station without 
being well assured of his cordial co-operation in the justice and 
purposes of the war. Indeed in a speech by Mr. Smilie in the 
secret seesions of the House, in April, 1812, he fully acknowledges 



CH. VII.] JOHN SMILIE. 14T 

the recentness of his entire accession to the war party : — " The 
embargo," says Mr. S., "is intended as a war measure. He would 
assure his colleague that it was so intended by the Executive and 
the Committee of Foreign Relations. And being now up, he would 
observe that at the beginning of the session [he might have said 
also at the last session] he was not so warm for war as many were, 
but he was for commercial restrictions. He was not for the 25,000 
men ; [increase of the army] but as the House have determined 
otherwise, he would now go to war. If we now recede we shall 
be a reproach among all nations." 

It is a well known trait in the history of the early supremacy in 
Congress of the Republican, or old Democratic party, that they 
resisted all the efforts of Jfew England and the seaboard to 
strengthen and extend the J^Tavy. And it was not until, by its 
brilliant victories in the early part of the war of 1812, it had con- 
quered favor and popularity with the people, that it came to be a 
cherished child of power and patronage. In the ancient hostility to 
this glory-covered protector of our coasts and commerce, Mr. Smilie 
acted with un deviating fidelity to his party policy. Had he lived a 
year longer, his characteristic candor, and readiness to change upon 
good and sufficient reasons, would doubtless have brought him to 
its support. 

In May, 1812, Mr. Smilie took a prominent part in the Congres- 
sional caucuses by which Mr. Madison was unanimously renomina- 
ted as the Republican candidate for President, and Elbridge Gerry, 
(of Mass.,) for Vice President; and was appointed on the Committee 
of Correspondence and Arrangement to inform them of their 
nomination, and to secure their election. He did not, however, 
live to witness their inauguration. 

Such is an outline and review of the public life of a man, who if 
not so gifted as to be great, was so well constituted in temper and 
intellect as to possess the confidence, if not the control, of the voters 
of the corner counties for a longer period than has fallen, or per- 
haps ever will fall, to the lot of any other man. The part cast for 
him in the drama of life was not that of Wolsey or King Henry 
nor yet that of Brutus or Anthony, but more resembled, in the 
favor which followed fidelity, that of the good Earl of "Westmoreland, 

" a summer bird, 



Which ever in the haunch of winter sings 
The lifting up of day." 

The private character of Mr. Smilie was most estimable and 
exemplary. In dress and address he was dignified and decorous, 



148 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

sufficiently familiar to be aifable, yet not so much so as to be de- 
grading, lie did not seek popularity by the low arts and plottings 
to which demagogues of more talent ofttimes resort, but made his 
approaches to the citadel of public favor and distinction by doing 
all the duties of a good citizen, and by fearlessly and faithfully 
representing his constituents in all that he believed to be for their 
true interests, yet so as therein not to thwart their determined will- 
In four out of the nine times that he was elected to Congress, he 
had no opponent; and in the other five, the opposition, though 
respectable, was not formidable. 

Mr. Smilie was moreover "the highest style of man, a Christian;" 
having lived and died in the faith and membership of the Tyrone 
Presbyterian Church, of which, if not an elder, he was perhaps a 
founder and a liberal supporter. In this respect his life gave clear 
evidence that the highway to political honors is not necessarily 
divergent from "wisdom's path," — a parallelism much oftener 
found in the good old times than in these days of railroad routes 
to popular favor, which must needs traverse low ground, 

" through many a dark aud dreary vale, 



Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death." 

Mr. Smilie had one son and two daughters. Robert, the son, died 
a few years ago, leaving a numerous family of sons and daughters, 
nearly all of whom have removed to the West. Mary, one of the 
daughters, was the v^ife of Joseph Huston, a well known old iron- 
master of Fayette. They had but two children, daughters — Jane, 
wife of Isaiah Marshall, who removed to Iowa, and Sarah, now the 
wife of George Dawson, Esq. Jane, the other daughter, was the 
wife of Captain William Craig — their only child is John S. Craig, 
of N. Union township. 



CH. VII.] GEN. BPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 149 



GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 

We are at a loss to locate, with certainty, the nativity of this 
patriarchal officer of Fayette. By some he is made to be a native 
of Scotland, which his father undoubtedly was — by others, of Mary- 
land, in the vicinity of Ilagerstown, and by others of Carlisle, or 
its adjacents, in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania. The last is, 
we think, the most probable. All his early associations in business 
and friends cluster around Carlisle, while we find nothing among 
his books or papers which point to Maryland, or indicate that he 
was a foreigner. 

His father was named Adam Douglass. He had one brother,' 

Joseph, and one sister, the wife of Collins, who left three 

sons. This is all we know of his family relations. He died on his 
farm, about two miles north-east of Uniontown, on the 17th July, 
1833, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. We believe he never 
was. married, yet he adopted, as his own, the children of one Mary 
Lyon, and made ample provision for her and them out of his 
estates. Ephraim, the son, died in Uniontown in April, 1839- 
Sarah, who was the wife of Daniel Keller, a well known old iron- 
master of Fayette, was a daughter. The other daughter was Eliza, 
wife of Allen King, now, we believe, residents of Clark county, 
Ohio. These all have a numerous offspring. 

Our first traces of the eventful early life of Gen. Douglass begin 
at Pittsburgh in the Spring of 1769, whither he seems to have 
come in the preceding year, leaving his father, mother and brother 
at Carlisle, until 1774, when they seem to have joined him at Pitts- 
burgh. Ephraim was then not over nineteen years old ; yet, having 
a good English education, steady habits and unusual energy, dili- 
gence and skill, he appears at once to have enjoyed the confidence 
and patronage of the fort officers, and of many of the most eminent 
Indian traders and settlers in and around that old frontier post, 
among whom we may name William and Richard Butler, Devereaux 
Smith, Daniel and William Elliott, Alexander Ross, Samuel Sample, 



^ Joseph Douglass seems to have been a kind of attache of his brother during the latter 
period of his operations at Pittsburgh, and the early years of his official tenures at 
Uniontown, chiefly as clerk and partner in a store. He was appointed State Excise 
Collector in December, 1786, a very unproductive office. About 1790 he removed to 
Greensburg, where he died in January, 1792, unmarried. He too, had been a revolu- 
tionary soldier. See further as to Joseph's history in 2 Yeates' Reports, 46. 



150 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII- 

John Ormsby and George Croghan, the Deputy Indian Agent. 
Although without any apparent direct connection with the fort, he 
lived, with others, in a " mess." 

For the first two or three years of his residence at Pittsburgh^ 
young Douglass appears to have been engaged in almost every 
kind of work — clerk, scrivener, carpenter, (his chief business,) 
cabinet maker, lumberman, blacksmith, gunsmith, stone mason, 
shop keeper, &c., &c. We could not better illustrate his universal 
genius and multiform employments than by a few extracts from his 
books of accounts — but we cannot afford the space. They show 
him to have been a handicraftsman such as is rarely met with ; and 
are an early display of that remarkable system, neatness and pre- 
cision which characterized his long official career in Fayette county ; 
— and then so young was he. He surely never could have learned 
all the arts he practiced — they must have come to him by intuition. 
He was equally at home from making and glazing sash for Mr. 
Samuel Sample's bai^-room window to making new Billy pins for his 
fiddle; — was as ready at "a day's writing and drinking" for Mr* 
Wm. Christy, or copying bills and accounts for Mr. Butler, as in 
tearing down and rebuilding Mr. Spear's cellar wall, — and was as 
prompt at cleaning Col. Croghan's coteau de chase as at shoeing his 
horse,^ or "laying a grubbing hoe" for John Ormsby. He had for 
sale all sorts of things, from a pint of rum, or a walnut board, to a 
canoe load of wood, or a bushel of lime. He made axes, jack- 
planes, keys, mill irons, grain cradles, fish darts and counter drawers; 
and repaired everything from "the rum store " lock to a gun lock 
— from a looking glass to a tea table. ITothing came amiss to him 
that required skill and the use of tools. And were it not for the 
indubitable evidence that he was doing all this on his own account, 
we would be led to believe that he was general superintendent of 
all the work shops in Pittsburgh. And we do believe he was then 
the only mechanic there, except Peter Roletter, the tailor, and Bar- 
ney Vertner, the turner. 

In 1771 he began to engage in the Indian trade,^ then, and for 



2 He had a journeyman horse-shoer, George Phelps, of ■whom are these entries: — 
"George Phelps, Dr: To driving a set of shoes wrong for Col. Croghan, for which he 
woiild not pay — 3s." — the key to which, is the following : " From the 20th July gave 
George Phelps a pint of rum a day, as he would not work without it, and I must have 
the work done." 

^ The General used to tell a somewhat remarkable occurrence that happened to him 
in one of his early hunting excursions. He was ascending the Allegheny in a canoe, 
with a companion, when, upon striking the current of French Creek, which was high, 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 161 

many years before and after, the great business of Pittsburgh. It 
consisted in selling shirts, leggings, beads, powder, lead, wampum, 
tomahawks, tobacco, and other unmentionables, to the Indians, for 
peltry of all sorts — bear, beaver, elk, fox, raccoon, cat, deer, &c., 
&c., rated, not by money, but by bucks — as, " By five deer skins, 
three bucks." These, when dried, &c., were sent to Philadelphia 
on pack-horses and sold by the pound, the pack-horse trains bring- 
ing back goods for the traders. Douglass engaged in this at first 
on his own account, but from 1772 to 1774 he operated as partner 
with Devereaux Smith, Esq., famous in the " Boundary contro- 
versy." They were extensive dealers, having establishments not 
only at Pittsburgh, but at Kuskuskia, on Beaver river, near the 
mouth of the Mahoning, and elsewhere in the Indian country. 
Gen. James O'Hara was in their employ. The Messrs. Gratz and 
Thos. Ashton were their factors at Philadelphia. The business 
become overdone in 1773, and the Indian troubles in 1774, and the 
Revolution in 1776 put an end to it. Douglass seems to have, how- 
ever, made money at the business. He took no part in the Boun- 
dary war — his aim being to keep on fair terms with, and extract 
profit from, both parties. He was always too much of a business 
man to be much of a partizan. 

The firm of Smith & Douglass continued in business until 1776, 
when Richard Butler came into the firm for a short period. But 
when the West became fully roused to the cause of Independence, 
and a fort was, in 1776, being built at Kittanning, they established 
a store there. In September of that year, the 8th Pennsylvania 
Regiment rendezvoused and was organized at that place, -^neas 
Mackay, Colonel ; George Wilson, Lieutenant Colonel ; Richard 
Butler, Major, &c. ; and Ephraim Douglass, Quarter Master. We 
have his official book of receipts, and the Company's (of Smith, 
Butler & Douglass) books of accounts at that post. The Regiment 
marched to Amboy, New Jersey, in January, 1777, and Quarter 



his canoe was upset, and guns, powder, peltry and hunters were precipitated into ten 
feet water. Douglass clung to the canoe, which he took ashore and tied. Then, by diving 
and feeling about, he recovered his gun and ammunition ; but his companion, who failed 
to regain his, left him and returned home. Douglass, after regaining his peltry, which 
had floated oflf, made a fire, and constructed a bark shelter from the rain, and bivouacked 
for the night. In the morning he was so stiff as to be unable to move. He remained in 
this condition for several days, almost without food. He concluded he must die, and 
getting a piece of bark, he scratched upon it this auto obituary : — "I have lived doubtful, 
but not dissolute — I die undetermined, but not unresigned — E. Douglass." He, however, 
Bcon got better, dried his powder, shot some game for food, and made a successful hunt. 



152 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

Master Douglass with it — the Company sending the residue of 
their goods and liquors back to Pittsburgh, in care of Joseph Dou- 
glass, who sold for a while and then boxed up the remnants for 
better times. 

Soon after joining the main American Army near New York, 
Major Douglass became an Aid de Camp to Major General Lincoln, 
of Massachusetts, and was serving in that capacity with a small 
body of troops, under the General's command, at Boundbrook, 
New Jersey, on the Eariton, when, on the 13th of April, 1777, 
Lord Cornwallis made an ascent upon them from Brunswick, and 
took sundry prisoners, among whom was the Major. He was car- 
ried to New York, then held by the enemy, where be underwent 
great rigors and privations. How long he was held in captivity we 
do not know. Gen. Washington wrote to Gen. Lincoln on the 
25th of October, 1777, that he would try to get him exchanged for 
some of the captives of Gen. Burgoyne's army, as soon as his turn 
came. But the odds, especially in officers, were then greatly 
against us — the British having five prisoners to our one of theirs. 
This, and the difficulties as to the treatment of prisoners which 
about this time arose between the contending armies, no doubt 
postponed the Major's release for a considerable time longer. He 
says himself that he did not rejoin the army until November 4, 
1780. And it is probable that he had not been long released. 
During his captivity his health, especially his eyes, suffisred severely. 
And it is said that from sleeping in a North British officer's bed 
he contracted a certain cutaneous disease, to cure which he resorted 
to remedies and expedients — mercury and bathing — which well 
nigh cost him his life. While a prisoner he received from our 
Commissaries of Prisoners sundry sums of money for subsist- 
ence, in all <£266, and soon afterwards $2,000 more, continental 
money. 

In August, 1781, we find Major Douglass again at Pittsburgh, 
recruiting his health, and settling up his old Indian trade business. 
In the fall of that year, or in the succeeding winter, he undertook 
a special secret mission for the Government into the Indian coun- 
try, for what precise purposes we do not know. Its hazardous char- 
acter may be best inferred from part of a letfer to him from his 
friend General Jas. Irvine, dated Philadelphia, July 10, 1782, 
wherein he says ; "I had heard of your magnanimous enterprise 
in penetrating alone into the Indian country — that you had been 
absent and not heard from for some months — that the time fixed 
for your return was elapsed, and that your friends about Pittsburgh 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 153 

had given you up as lost." He returned in May. From the first 
of September, 1782, to the last of April, 1783, he served as Inten- 
dant of Prisoners at Philadelphia, the duties and emoluments of 
which we cannot determine, but presume it related to the care of 
British prisoners of war. 

On the first of May, 1783, Congress resolved upon another 
embassy to the Indians of the ITorth-west, to inform them that 
peace had been agreed on and hostilities ceased with Great Britain — 
that the forts within the limits of the United States held by British 
troops would soon be evacuated — that the United States wished to 
enter into friendly treaties with them, and that unless they acceded 
to these friendly ofi'ers and ceased their hostilities, Congress would 
take measures to compel them thereto. 

The Secretary at War immediately selected Major Douglass for 
this delicate and dangerous mission. He sat out from Fort Pitt 
on the 7th of June, with horses and attendants, passing through 
the hostile wilderness of the IS'orth-west to Sandusky, where he 
was detained several days ; thence to Detroit, thence to Niagara, 
Upper Canada ; and thence to Oswego, on Lake Ontario ; all of 
which posts were then held by British Garrisons. In this tour he 
met with his old Pittsburgh acquaintances, Elliott and M'Kee, now 
tory employees of the British, and with the celebrated Indian 
chiefs, Captains Pipe and Brant. The British commandants would 
not permit him to make to the Indians a public exposition of the 
objects of his mission.* They, however, as well as the Indians, 
treated him with great civility and respect. Brant wanted him to 
visit him at his Mohawk castle, but the British oflScers forbid. 



*In a letter from General Douglass, dated at Uniontown, in February, 1784, to the 
President of Council, he communicates some valuable information about Indian affairs 
■which had como to his knowledge since he left the Canadian country. Its substance is, 
that Sir John Johnson, the British Indian Agent, had assembled the western Indians at 
Sandusky, and after a lavish distribution of presents, had told them that, although the 
King, whom they had served, had made peace with the Colonies and granted them his 
lands, yet he had not given them the Indians' lands — that the Ohio river was to be the 
boundary in this quarter, over which they should "not allow the Americans to pass 
and return in safety: " and that as the war was now ended, "he would, as was usual at 
the end of a war, take the tomahawk out of their hands, though he would not remove 
it out of sight, or far from them, but lay it carefully down by their side, that they might 
have it convenient to use in defence of their rights and property if they were invaded 
or molested by the Americans." Such incitements as this greatly conduced to keep up 
the Indian annoyances in the North-west, costing us much blood and treasure during 
many years, and until Wayne's great victory of 1704. 



161: THE MONONGAHBLA OF OLD. [CH. VII- 

While at Detroit there was a Grand Council of -eleven Indian tribes. 
They seemed glad to hear of peace and, says the Major in his 
report, " gave evident marks of satisfaction at seeing me among 
them, [an old acquaintance.] They carried their civilities so far, 
that all day, when at home, m}' lodging was surrounded with crowds, 
and the streets lined with them to attend my going abroad,"^ He 
returned in August, and immediately repaired to Princeton, New- 
Jersey, where Congress was sitting, and prepared an extended 
report of the incidents and results of his mission. For this service, 
Congress voted him five hundred dollars. 

Upon his return from this expedition, he found the Legislature 
about to erect the new county of Fayette, and, waiting its accom- 
plishment, he applied for and was, on the 6th of October, 1783, 
ten days after the Act passed, appointed by the Supreme Executive 
Council, Prothonotary and Clerk of the Courts. His competitors 
were Dorsey Pentecost, recently Clerk of Yohogania county Courts 
under the Virginia usurpation, Alexander M' Clean, and Joseph 
M'Cleery. He entered at once upon the duties of his new ofiices, 
being here at the first Court, held on the fourth Tuesday in Decem- 
ber following; ofiices which he held uninterruptedly until Decem- 
ber, 1808, when he resigned. 

In 1784 he was appointed County Treasurer, which office he filled 
until January, 1800. The duties of this office during those fifteen 
years were exceedingly onerous and responsible. Besides the 
county levies during all the period, a State tax of greater amount 
had, yearly until 1790, to be collected and remitted, to meet the 
State's quotas to support the Federal Government and pay the war 
debts. For, until the new Federal Constitution of 1789 became 
efl^ective, Congress assessed certain sums of revenue to be furnished 
by each State, and the State apportioned the sum among its coun- 
ties. This had to be paid in gold or silver, or in certain Govern- 
ment certificates. And the great scarcity of money in this county 
made the burden of its payment very grievous, and its collection 
exceedingly difficult and unpleasant. Nevertheless Fayette was 



* By long intercourse with the Indians he had learned their language and manners so 
well as, with the aid of their dress, which he could assume, to make a very good "couh- 
terfeit presentment" of a Chief. It was on this, or the former mission, that he undertook 
in that character to speak in Council. He played the part so well that when he sat 
down an old Chief rose and anxiously inquired — "What Chief is that who has spoken? — 
I don't remember to have ever before heard his voice in Council! " 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHKAIM DOUGLASS. 155 

generally prompt to pay her quota.® In writing to the State Treas- 
urer, February 6, 1786, Gen. Douglass says : " John Smilie, Esq., 
will deliver you a sum of money agreeable to the enclosed inven- 
tory. And trifling as this sum may appear, it was with great diffi- 
culty that we collected so much. How the tax for the present year 
will be raised, God only knows." And to show as well the amount 
of our yearly State tax in those days, when our population was only 
about 8,000, as the kind of funds sent to pay it, we copy the fol- 
lowing letter from Gen. Douglass to the State Treasurer, dated 

" Uniontown, 20th August, 1787. 
" Sir : — I have the honor to remit you by Col. Phillips the fol- 
lowing orders and bills of credit: 

£ s. d. 
Col. Andrew Porter's order and receipt thereon for - 87 

Your order in favor of Andrew Linn for 17 13 

Do. " John M'Farland for - - - - 33 8 8 

Do. " Robert Brownfield for - - - 3 7 1 

Amounting to -• 140 17 

<£ s. d. 

1 20s. bill 1 

25 10s. " 12 10 

12 5s. " 3 

1 9d. " 9 

16 10 9 

Will make - 157 7 9 

Which, with what I sent by J. Smilie, Esq., - - - - 231 19 3 

Will amount to half our quota for this year, - - <£389 7 



6 Comptroller General's Office, "» 
"Sir: September 9, 1786. / 

The honorable situation in which the county of Fayette is placed by the 
punctual discharge of her taxes, reflects high credit upon the officers employed in the 
laying, collecting and paying the same, as well as upon the county at large. May you 
long continue, and I hope you will long continue in the same laudable situation. Your 
example will have a good influence upon others, so that you not only do your duty your- 
selves, but in some degree procure the same to be done by others. The bearer is riding 
the State for money, but from you we ask none. You have anticipated our demand, 
and I know will continue to send it down as fast as you receive it. 

I am, with respect, Sir, 

Your most ob't. very humble serv't. 
"Ephkaim Douglass, Esq. JOHN NICHOLSON. 

Treasurer Fayette County." 



156 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

" I trust there will be no difficulty about the order of Col. Por- 
ter.^ His public as well as private character, and the necessities 
of the Commissioners at the time, I hope will excuse me for 
advancing the money without your order. 

"I have the honor to be, most respectfully, 

" Sir, your very obedient servant, 

"Ephraim Douglass. 
^'^ David Eiitenhouse, Esq." 

Besides the moneys he had to collect and remit as County 
Treasurer, he had also, as Clerk of the Courts, to collect and remit 
tavern license fees, fines and forfeitures, and fees on marriage 
licenses. Concerning the latter, he writes, in January, 1785, that 
having " ten marriage licenses, their number will not be likely to 
diminish so long as there is no penalty for marrying before almost 
any body without a license." He writes again in August that 
" there are yet nine marriage licenses on hand, and very little 
demand for them." 

We could illustrate these now forgotten difficulties to a much 
greater extent by letters and extracts from the papers of Gen. 
Douglass now before us, but having some of another class to copy, 
we must hasten on. 

Gen. Douglass brought out to Uniontown, shortly after he came 
here, a small stock of goods, the proceeds of some of his peltries, 
which were packed over the mountains from Shippensburg, at five 
dollars per hundred weight. He never, we believe, renewed the 
stock, but soon began investing his surplus funds in town lots and 
lands. 

Besides his other offices, he was, in 1785, appointed to survey 
part of District No. 3 of Depreciation Lands, north of the Alle- 
gheny river, which he seems to have executed chiefly by the aid of 
one Robert Stevenson. We find, however, among Gen. Douglass' 
papers a beautiful copy of the map of the lands in his own hand- 
writing. It is of a part of the district chiefly in Allegheny county, 
being three miles wide and over thirty miles long, embracing two 
hundred and eighteen tracts. For this service he got <£763, of 
which he paid Mr. Stevenson above half the sum. 

General Douglass held also, about 1785, the appointment of 
Agent for the sale of confiscated estates of Tories in Fayette. We 



'' Father of Ex-Governor David R. Porter, -who had recently been engaged as a Com- 
missioner to run and mark our Western and Northern boundaries. 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 157 

are glad to say that he had but one case, and he a non-resident. 
That was to sell the lands of Dr. Anthony Yeldall, of Philadelphia, 
who owned the Mendenhall Dam tract, now owned by William 
Wood and David Poundstone. The General sold it, we believe, 
to one James M'Donald. Yeldall was supposed to own another 
tract on the high hill west of McClellandtown, held in the name of 
Edward Green, now owned, we believe, by John Wilson, Esq., and 
Messrs. Parshall and Eenshaw, and the Agent sold it to, perhaps, 
Michael Cock; but Green afterwards recovered it, as really his 
property and not Yeldall's. 

In April, 1793, Governor Mifflin commissioned Douglass to be 
Brigadier General of the county of Fayette, and tradition yet pre- 
serves the memory of his splendid erect appearance on his charger 
in the field, and the rigid exactness of his commands. He took 
pride in appearances, and for many years drove the only landau or 
four wheeled carriage in the county. 

Gen. Douglass was a man of high stature and most imposing 
appearance, remarkably neat and exact in gait and dress, with long 
queue and powdered hair.® He was a peer among the great and 
high minded judges and attorneys of his day — Addison, Ross, 
Smith, Brackenridge, Meason, Galbraith, Hadden, Lyon, Kennedy, 
&c. ; enjoying their society and confidence. He had a repulsive 
sternness and awe-inspiring demeanor which repelled undue famil- 
iarity and rendered him unpopular with the masses. His temper 
was very irritable, and he was subject to impetuous rage. He was 
conscious of these frailties, and assigned them as a reason why he 
never married. Yet he was a man of great liberality, generous 
and kind to the poor, and especially to a friend in need. It is said 
that in a season when a great scarcity of grain was threatened, he 
providently bought up large quantities at fair prices, which, when 
the expected wants of his neighbors came upon them, he sold at 
cost, or lent to be repaid in kind and quantity after the next har- 
vest. But the most striking proof of his generosity is the follow- 
ing, which we find among his papers. To understand its force the 
reader must remember that at its date Gen. St. Clair had become 
old, broken in spirit, and very poor, eking out a subsistence for 



* He was, moreover, when in his prime, a man of great athletic vigor and endurance. 
It is related of him, that having been taken prisoner by the Indians, in the winter, he 
enticed his keepers to the river to try their skill with him in skating. After amusing 
them for a while by letting them excel him, he at length put spurs to his skates and 
away he went with such rapidity and continuance as to defy pursuit, and thus escaped. 



158 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

himself and an afflicted family by keeping a poor old log tavern by 
the way side, on Chesnut Ridge mountain, in Westmoreland : 

"Uniontown, 13th February, 1809. 
" Tieceived of General Epbraim Douglass, one hundred dollars, 
which I promise to repay him on demand, or at furthest by the 
sixth day of June next. Signed, 

"Ar. St. Clair." 
Underneath which, in Gen. Douglass' handwriting, is : — 
" l!^ever to be demanded. To save the feelings of an old friend 
I accepted this receipt, after refusing to take an obligation. 

Signed, "E. Douglass." 

A nobler monument is this scrap of paper than was ever reared 
in brass or marble. Who would not rather wear the rank which 
its inscription gives, than be the possessor of all the titles, with all 
the cold domains, of the Emperor of all the Russias ! 

" The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gold, foi* a' that." 

We will close this memoir, already perhaps too extended, with 
some extracts from his early correspondence, copies of which he 
carefull}^ preserved. 

GEN. DOUGLASS' LETTERS. 

To John Dickinson, Esq., President of Supreme Executive Council : 

" Uniontown, 2d February, 1784. 

"Sir:— ='^ * * * 

" The courts were opened for this county on the 23d of 
December last. The gathering of people was pretty numerous ; 
and I was not alone in fearing that we should have had frequent 
proofs of that turbulence of spirit with which they have been so 
generally and perhaps too justly stigmatized. But I now feel great 
satisfaction in doing them the justice to say that they behaved, to 
a man, with decency and good order. Our Grand Jury was really 
respectable — equal at least to many I have seen in courts of long 
standing. Little business was done other than dividing the county 
into townships, a return of which is under cover. 

* * * * "The instructions of Council respecting the opposition 
to assessment in Menallen township, I laid before the Justices as 
directed, but they have not yet come to any resolution thereon. 
Some of them, I find, are of opinion that the reviving it at this 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 159 

distant time might be attended with more vexatious consequences 
than the suffering it to be forgotten will probably produce. For 
this reason, and in consideration of their since peaceable demeanor, 
I should incline to be of opinion with the others, that for the 
present, until the authority of the court becomes, by degrees and 
habitude of obedience, more firmly established in the general acqui- 
escence of the people of the county, and a jail and other objects of 
popular terror be erected, to impress on their minds an idea of the 
punishment annexed to a breach of the laws, lenient measures 
might produce as good effects as the most rigorous ones that justice 
could adopt, were not the wisdom and directions of Council opposed 
to this opinion. To these reasons for declining the prosecution of 
the offenders, if their identity could be made appear, (which I 
think very doubtful,) might be added others that I am distressed to 
be obliged to take notice of. The tax not having been assessed 
till after the division of the county, the authority of the Commis- 
sioners of Westmoreland county then became justly questionable ; 
and the total want of Commissioners in this county, to levy a tax 
of any kind, either for the State or to answer the exigencies of the 
county ; and the consequent inability of the Trustees to perform 
the duties assigned them by the Legislature, may all be subjects of 
consideration in this case. For, from an unhappy misconception 
of the law for dividing Westmoreland, the county of Fayette has 
not an oiBcer of any kind, except such as were continued, or crea- 
ted by the Act, or by the appointment of Council. Denied the 
power of a separate election for a member of Council and Repre- 
sentative in Assembly till the general election of the present year, 
they unfortunately concluded that this inability extended to all the 
other elective officers of the county, and in consequence of this 
belief, voted for them in connection with Westmoreland. The 
remedy of this evil is, I fear, not easily pointed out ; but if there 
be a possible one, it is to be found in the wisdom of Council, to 
which I now beg leave, as I shall in all other difficulties, to make 
my humble appeal.® 

" The Trustees have appointed next Monday to meet on, and 
begin the partition line between this county and Westmoreland ; 
on this condition, which Col. M'Clean, who is to be the executive 
person, has generously agreed to, to pay the expense at some future 



9 The trouble here referred to occurred in October, 1783, just after Fayette county 
was erected. It grew to a more desperate resistance in the spring of 1784. See Letters 
of May 29th and July 11th, 1784, poatea, and notes. 



160 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

time, when it shall be in their power to call upon the Commission- 
ers for the money. Necessity has suggested to us the expedient of 
building a temporary jail by subscription, which is now on foot. 

***** ]^^^^^ February 6th — in continuance. 

"Want of an earlier conveyance gives me the opportunity of 
enclosing to Council the return of an election held here this day 
for Justices of the Peace for this township ; and I trust the importance 
of the choice of officers to the county will excuse me to that hon- 
orable body for offering my remarks on this occasion. 

" Col. M' Clean, though not the first on theTcturn, needs no pane- 
gyric of mine ; he has the honor to be known to Council. James 
Flnley is a man of a good understanding, good character, and well 
situate to accommodate that part of the township most remote from 
the town. Henry Beeson is the proprietor of the town, a man of 
much modesty, good sense and great benevolence of heart ; and 
one whose liberality of property for public uses justly entitles him 
to particular attention from the county, however far it may be a 
consideration with Council. Jonathan Rowland is also a good man, 
with a good share of understanding, and abetter English education 
than either of the two last mentioned, but unfortunately of a pro- 
fession rather too much opposed to the suppression of vice and 
immorality — he keeps a tavern. John Gaddis is a man whom I do 
not personally know — one who has, at a former election in the then 
township of Menallen, been returned t© Council, but never com- 
missioned, for what reason I know not. His popularity is with 
those who have been most conspicuous in opposition to the laws 
of this Commonwealth. Moses Sutton is remarkable for nothing 
but aspiring obscurity, and a great facility at chanting a psalm, or 
stammering a prayer. ^"^ 

"Duty thus far directs me to give Council an impartial descrip- 
tion of the men who are to be the future ofiicers of this county, 
but both duty and respect forbid my saying more, or presuming to 
express a wish of my own ; for I have no predilection in favor of, 
or personal prejudice against either of them. 
" I have the honor to be, &c. 

"Ephraim Douglass. " 



10 Father of the late Samuel Sutton, and, we believe, a Baptist preacher. M'Clean, 
Finley and Gaddis were commissioned. 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUQLASg. 

To John Nicholson, OomptroUer General : 

"Uniontown, 16th April, 1784. 

" And now, Sir, I will, for the last time, trouble you with the 
mention of an affair which has already created some trouble to us 
both. My opinion, when founded on principle, I can never sacri- 
fice to any other gentleman, but I am less wedded to my interest. 
The efforts I have already made to accommodate the dispute between 
us have convinced me that you are not less tenacious of yours, 
I have neither leisure, opportunity^ nor inclination to undergo the 
drudgery and expense of a tedious lawsuit, whereby this matter 
might be settled in time; nor am I of that importunacy of dispo- 
sition to trouble the Legislature, after having once troubled the 
Supreme Executive power of the State, with an application on this 
subject ; though I should not doubt of a determination in my favor. 
To avoid therefore both the one and the other, and to satisfy you, 
I have sent you my certificate, in the confidence that I shall now 
be allowed to enjoy the satisfaction I shall derive from the recollec- 
tion of having served and suffered, forfeited my interest and ruined 
my constitution, without any other reward : for rather than accept 
of less than I believe myself entitled to, I would wish to have 



nothing." 



"I have the honor to be, &c. 

"Ephraim Douglass." 



To John Armstrong, Jr., Esq., Secretary of State : 

" Uniontown, 29th May, 1784. 
" Sir :***** 

" There is so seldom a direct conveyance of a letter from 
this place to Philadelphia, that I expect every communication I can 
make will be anticipated by some other person ; but lest my silence 
might be attributed to inattention, I will give you, in this official 
letter, a short sketch of the affairs of this county. 

"The County Commissioners are so much counteracted by the 
rabble of this county, that it appears hardly probable the taxes will 
ever be collected in the present mode. In the township of Menallen 



" This difficulty related to tho adjustmaat of Gen. Douglass' pay as a Revolutionary 
officer, while he was a prisoner of war. It wa?, we believe, finally settled according to 
hia views. 

11 



162 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [OH. VII. 

in particular, which includes this place, agreeable to its limits 
in the duplicate, the terror of undertaking the duty of Collector 
has determined several to refuse it, under the severe penalty 
annexed. Two only have accepted, and these have both been 
robbed by some ruffians unknown, and in the night, of their dupli- 
cates.'^ The inhabitants of the other townships have not gone to 
such lengths, but complain so much of the hardship and the want 
of money that I fear very little is to be hoped from them. 

" On the other hand, the banditti from" Bucks county, or some 
others equally bad, or both, have established themselves in some 
part of this county not certainly known, but thought to be in the 
deserted part of Washington county ; whence they make frequent 
incursions into the settlements under cover of the night, terrify the 



'- These two were the Collectors for Meaallen and Springhill. The tax was that which 
had been levied by the Westmoreland Commissioners. Who theMenallen Collector was, 
and what the facts of his case, we have not been able to ascertain. The Springhill Col- 
lector was Philip Jenkins. He was robbed at his own house, about nine o'clock at night, 
on the 2tl of June, 1784, of his duplicate, about £25 in money, a pocket bottle, a razor 
and some soap. He testified to this being done by three men unknown to him, dressed 
in hunting shirts, with their faces striped, one of them very tall, with a long neck, each 
armed with a pistol and club. He and family, with some neighbors, among them James 
Bell, were sitting up with a sick child. Two of the robbers spoke Dutch. They cursed, 
abused and beat him badly. Their avowed purpose was to prevent tax gathering. 

These cases were communicated by the Commissioners of Westmoreland to the Supreme 
Executive Council of the State, who thereupon, on the 29th June, 1784, issued a procla- 
mation, offering a reward of £50 for the apprehension and conviction of each offender. 
We believe none' of them were ever arrested or prosecuted. 

'^ These were the Loanes, Abraham, Levi, Moses, Joseph, and his three sons, Aaron, 
.Joseph and Mahlon, with whom were associated other persons, by the names of Vickers, 
Paul Woodard, &c., Tories and Refugees in the Revolution. They had robbed the 
Treasurer and several Collectors and citizens of Bucks county, in 1782, and had fled to 
the West They were outlawed by the Legislature, and rewards offered for their appre- 
hension. Two of the Vickers, two or three Doanes, and some others, were arrested, 
convicted and hung. Two Doanes were committed to Bedford county jail in 1783 — 
Mahlon and Joseph having been caught in Maryland. Their fate is unrevealed. 

The "deserted part of Washington county" was the Ten Mile country. 'Tis said 
these banditti had a den on the Monongahela river, in Luzerne township, between David- 
son's lower ferry and Rice's Landing. Several years afterwards, one Myers and Pratt, 
supposed to be connections of this gang, were convicted of horse stealing in Fayette. 

The gang was an extensive one, all over the State and in adjacent parts of Maryland, 
Virginia, and the North-west. They stole horses, negroes, and other property, and 
were exceedingly bold and successful, having many accomplices in the country. We 
will not name the three referred to by Gen. Douglass, as they were never tried Abra- 
ham Doane had been arrested in Washington county and committed. A mob rescued 
him. He was a"-ain, with Thomas Richason and two women, pursued towards Detroit 
by an armed party, in June, 1784, and the four again committed to the Washington 
county jail. Abraham and Levi were hung at Philadelphia, in 1788. 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS, 163 

defenceless inhabitants, sometimes treat them unmercifully, and 
rob them of their property, and then retire to their lurking places. 
What seems to confirm the belief of its being the Doanes, or some 
of their companions, is drawn from the circumstances attending 
the detection and confinement of one of the gang at Washington 
county in the beginning of this spring. After this wretch had 
been rescued from the guard there, he, with others of his compan- 
ions, came to the house of the person who was the principal in 
taking him, robbed him of his horse and other property, and cau- 
tioned him against meddling with any of them hereafter ; and this, 
added to the frequency of their robberies in that county, favors the 
belief of their residence there. This county, however, has also 
sufi'ered by them, though they came in the character of thieves and 
not robbers here. And yet nothing has hitherto been attempted 
to punish them, or bring them to justice ; partly, perhaps, because 
there are not yet a sufficient number provoked by their losses, but 
principally from the improbability of succeeding in the attempt. 
For, though they cannot be pointed out with certainty, or prosecu- 
ted to conviction, there must be too many in this country who aid 
and abet them, and who would readily notify them of any prepara- 
tion making against them. And, from the representation of their 
number, which is said to have been twenty-eight at the forcing of 
the jail in Washington, nothing can be undertaken against them 
without such preparation as must make it very generally known. 

" I have the honor to be, kc. 

"EpHRAIM DotJGLASS." 



Sir 



To the President of the Supreme Executive Council. 

'^Uniontown, July 11th, 1784. 



"Taking it for certain that Council have been informed 
of the capture of some of the robbers who have lately pursued the 
same practices here for which they fled hither, I shall not trouble 
them with the particulars of that transaction. Every thing in our 
power has been done to discover their connections in this quarter, 
without a certainty of having succeeded. Several have been 
apprehended on suspicion, and three of them, from a greater con- 
currence of circumstances, have, by the advice of the Attorney for 
the State, been recognized to the next Court of Oyer and Terminer 
for this county. The others have been suffered to return home 



164 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

without security, they being either innocent, or too cautious to 
admit anything to appear against them, though much suspected by 
many. 

"I can make no other communications of importance enough to 
merit the attention of Council, unless what relates to the taxes of 
this county ; and even that not with sufficient accuracy. Some 
small sums have been collected in some of the townships. One of 
the collectors was robbed of what he had gathered, by the same 
banditti, it is thought, who committed the other robberies in the 
country. Some attempts have been made to raise money by the 
sale of goods taken by the collectors for taxes, but no one would 
bid for them. Thus the laws are eluded without open opposition. 

"I have the honor to be, &c. 

"Ephraim Douglass." 



To His Excellency, Thomas Mifflin, Governor, (j-c. 

"Uniontown, 24th April, 1791. 
" Sir : — A heart susceptible of gratitude, or a mind subject to the 
impressions of vanity, cannot fail to be greatly delighted with your 
Excellency's condescending invitation to all your subordinate 
officers to a candid correspondence with the first gentleman in the 
State. I feel myself so greatly elated with the prospect, that I shall 
only restrain myself by the fear of becoming troublesome. I have, 
however, to lament and pray that your Excellency will admit it in 
excuse that my local situation is such as absolutely to deny me the 
frequent communications which duty and inclination would prompt 
me to make. Placed almost on the southern verge of the State, 
and at the distance of more than thirty miles from the post road to 
Pittsburgh,^* I cannot avail myself of that conveyance. As an 
evidence of this, it was not until yesterday I was honored with 
your Excellency's circular letter of the 24th of December last, 
which, I trust, will remove the imputation I may have incurred of 
neglecting the injunctions of that letter. Other channels of com- 
munication with the city, or interior parts of the State, we can be said 



J* There was no post-office in Fayette county until after the Whiskey Insurrection, 
(1794). The " post-road" referred to was from Philadelphia, and from Virginia by way of 
Bedford, to Pittsburgh; which was established (twice a mouth each way) in 178G — the 
contractors, or carriers, taking the postages for their pay. For many years Pittsburgh 
was the ouly post-office west of the mountains. We have seen a Pittsburgh Gazette of 
1792, containing a list of advertised letters, among which were for men iu Kentucky, 
and in Fayette county. The Gazette was distributed over the west by private carriers. 
See "Chapter (XV.) of Miscellanies." 



CH. VII.] GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS. 165 

to have none certain, but the periodical meeting of the legislature. 
A precarious one, indeed, we have by people occasionally going to 
the land office; and these are the only chances of writing from this 
place. The great road from Fort Cumberland, on the river 
Potomac, to the Monongahela, at Redstone old Fort, passes through 
the centre of the county and county town. And by this road 
almost all our little trade is conducted to Hagerstown, Winchester, 
and Martinsburg, (if not intercepted at Cumberland and Old 
Town,) in the neighboring States. The consideration of attracting 
the trade of one of the best cultivated tracts of country westward 
of the mountains, ought, perhaps, (I say it with diffidence) to have 
suggested the policy of bringing the State road more to the south- 
ward than where it is now laid out. That to Cumberland is bad, 
almost in the extreme, and had we a good one through Pennsylvania 

to the back towns, I think there is little doubt of our preferring 

jf * t- '.' * * * 

"I have the honor to be, &c. 

"Ephraim Douglass." 



To His Excellency, Governor Mifflin. 

" Uniontown, 6th August, 1791. 

" Sir : — In obedience to your Excellency's command, I have filled 
up the blanks of the schedule as directed, with the names of such 
persons as, from my own knowledge of their characters, or from the 
information of the principal gentlemen of the county, I think 
most likely to fill the office of Justices of the Peace with credit to 
government and to themselves, and satisfaction to their neighbors. 
I have placed them in that order in which my judgment places 
them, with respect to their abilities, without prepossession or 
prejudice. ***** 

"The Act for erecting the county of Washington limits that 
county by the west side of the Monongahela river; and this county 
is limited ' beginning at Monongahela river where Mason and 
Dixon's line crosses the same ; thence down the river to the mouth 
of Speer's run, &c.' Now, by these two acts, it would appear that 
the river still belonged to Westmoreland county, and that neither 
of the other counties have any jurisdiction on it. Cases may easily 
be supposed where this might eventually happen to be a very great 
evilj^though no such a case has hitherto come within my knowledge 
or observation. * * * * 

"I have the honor to be, &c. 

"Ephraim Douglass." 



166 THE MONONGAUELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 



ALBERT GALLATIN. 

Last, but not least, of the ancient worthies who adorn the annals 
uf Fayette, is Albert Gallatin : last to come upon the stage of action, 
last to leave it. Two centuries of his country's history inherit, in 
unequal shares, his character and services ; Fayette county claims 
jurisdiction of their distribution. So ample is the inheritance, that, 
in the narrow limits allowed us here, we can attempt nothing more 
than a schedule of the most prominent items which compose it^ 
with perhaps an occasional effort to examine and estimate those 
which come more directly within the scope and purpose of our 
labors. 

Mr. Gallatin was born at Geneva, in the Republic of Switzerland, 
January 29th, 1761, and was allied, on the part of both his parents, 
to some of the most worthy families of that renowned country, inclu- 
ding that of the celebrated jSTecker, and his daughter, Madame de 
Stael. His ancestor, John Gallatin, Secretary to the Duke of Savoy, 
emigrated to Geneva early in the 16th century ; and having embraced 
the Reformation, was one of the city magistrates when it became 
an independent Republic. 

Becoming an orphan in infancy, he was educated under the 
maternal care of a most excellent lady, who was a relative and 
intimate friend of his mother. His patrimony, though not 
large, was adequate to his thorough education and suitable outfit 
for the voyage of life. Had it been greater, he might have dissi- 
pated his energies upon some tranquil bay, or dashed them against 
the rocks of folly and vice : had it been less, he might have been 
forced to hug the shores of obscurity, or strand upon some ignoble 
island, for lack of canvas to stem the current. 

Nor was he less fortunate in the era of his birth, and in the 
locality of his youthful education. jS^owh^re in the Old World 
could he have been so well fitted for the career he was destined to 
run in the New. The fruits of the Reformation had ripened in the 
city where its blossoms first bloomed. Geneva had become not more 
famous for the Institutes of Calvin than for her institutions of 
learning. At an early age he entered the University of Geneva, 
and was graduated in 1779. His after-life attests the fidelity of his 
instructors, and his diligence and assiduity as a student. Then 
and there were acquired and disciplined those characteristic elements 
of his subsequent eminence — accuracy, thoroughness, reliance upon 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 167 

the power of truth and confidence in his ability to wield it. 
These were his fulcrum and lever, by which he moved others and 
sustained himself. That they were always rightly used is a question 
we are not now considering ; but that they gave origin and success 
to all his great efforts as politician, statesman, orator, financier, 
diplomatist, philosopher, and scholar, is a solution so adequate to 
account for his eminence in all these departments as to call for no 
other. 

Emerging from the retirement and restraints of study at the 
impulsive age of eighteen, young Gallatin saw the Old World 
aghast at the revolt of the American colonies, and at once felt the 
throb of sympathy which pervaded the enlightened mind of conti- 
nental Europe. France, whose language he spoke, whose literature 
and history he knew, and between whose people and his own there 
was also a community of origin and jealousy of England, had just 
then come to the timely aid of the trans- Atlantic "rebels." The 
conjuncture of circumstances was attractive — the prospect of 
success cheering — the call to youthful heroism loud and charming — 
the field of prospective wealth and fame rich and expansive. To 
keep him back, he had within his acceptance the offer of honorable 
military rank in the service of one of the German sovereigns. 
This he declined. Unrestrained by any parental control, though 
against the will of his patroness and relatives, he resolved to seek 
the shores of struggling liberty, and to peril his fame and fortunes, 
and perhaps his life, in the conflicts and consequences of the 
contest. To this high resolve he was perhaps stimulated by young 
Bache, whom his grandfather. Dr. Franklin, had sent to Geneva to 
enjoy the superior educational facilities of that city, and by others 
of his comrades and friends. An eminent Frenchman, La Roche- 
foucald D'Enville, then resident near Geneva, wrote to Dr. Frank- 
lin, May 22d, 1780, asking his " kind attention for two young men 
whom the love of glory and of liberty draws to America. One of 
them is named Gallatin. He is nineteen years old, well informed for 
his age, of an excellent character thus far, with much natural talent . 
The name of the other is Serre. They have concealed their 
project from their relatives, and therefore we cannot tell where 
they will land. It is supposed, however, that they are going to 
Philadelphia, or to the Continental army." The fugitives landed 
at Boston, July 14th, 1780, doubtless from a French vessel which 
had sailed under convoy of the French fleet under Admiral De 
Ternay, which in that month landed the Count de Rochambeau 
and an army of 5,500 men at ISTewport, R. I., to aid us in our 
theu' waning efforts for independence. 



168 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

Soon after his arrival, our young adventurer proceeded to Maine, 
and resided for some time at Passamaquoddy and at Machias, 
where he served as a volunteer under Col. John Allen, commander 
of the Fort. He also contributed to the support of the garrison by 
advances out of his private funds. lie seems, however, soon to 
have discovered that the tented field and " all the current of a 
heady fight " were not congenial with his temper and habits. And 
as the war seemed ended by the capture of Cornwallis, in October, 
1781, Mr. Gallatin, in the spring of 1782, accepted the post of 
Instructor in the French language in Harvard University, to which 
he was chosen through the friendly intervention of the celebrated 
Dr. Cooper. 

In the winter of 1783-84, Mr, G. was engaged at Richmond, 
Virginia, in negotiating for payment by that State, of a claim upon 
it for funds advanced during the Revolution, by a European house. 
This brought him into contact with the public men of that proud 
commonwealth, and contributed much to the growth, if not to the 
germination, of an ambition for political life. During this sojourn 
in Richmond, he had his lodgings at the house of the widow of a 
French gentleman, Madame Allegre, with whose daughter, an 
accomplished lady, he became enamored. The daughter was 
more charmed with the interesting stranger than was the 
mother. The latter seriously objected to the marriage, because, 
whilst she had nothing else to say against him, " he was such a 
fool !" But while he was pursuing these two very dissimilar nego- 
tiations — pecuniary and matrimonial, he had occasion frequently 
to call upon Patrick Henry, then the Governor of the Old Dominion, 
upon the subject of his mission, when the conversation would 
sometimes digress to general topics. The impression made upon 
the Governor by the brilliant and intelligent observations of Mr. 
G. was so favorable that he pronounced him one of the most extra- 
ordinary men he had ever seen, and predicted his future eminence. 
So differently was he viewed by the mother and the orator. Mr. 
G. conducted both his suits to successful terminations. The 
mother yielded, and Mademoiselle Allegre soon afterwards became 
Mrs- Gallatin. 

Mr. Gallatin was advised by Gov. Henry to settle in Western 
Virginia ; and, desirous of making the small residuum of ready 
money he had saved, go as far as possible, he, during 1784, pur- 
chased for a low price a large quantity of wild land in Monongalia 
county. He formed "one grand project" of settling his new 
domain with a colony of emigrants from continental Europe, and 
came out to survey the land, and make requisite preliminary 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 169 

arraDgements. In the midst of this labor, the Indian aggressions 
upon the frontiers of Virginia, and of Pennsylvania west of the 
Monongahela, became so alarming and fatal to the white inhabi- 
tants, that the hopeful colony founder sought a temporary refuge just 
beyond the lines of danger, in Springhill township, Fayette county, 
Pennsylvania. The Indian troubles continued, the colony bubble 
burst, and Mr. G.'s temporary residence became ere long his per- 
manent home. The name of Albert Gallatin first appears upon 
the assessment rolls of Springhill township, for the year 1787. In 
May, 1786, he bought from Nicholas Blake his settlement right for 
the "Friendship Hill " tract, upon which he so long resided. He 
was naturalized in Virginia, in 1785. It is probable, therefore, that 
for some two years prior to the fall of 1786, his residence was some- 
what migratory, at and between Springhill and Morgantown, 
Virginia — inclination drawing him to the former, and business to 
the latter. During his sojourn at Morgantown, or while business 
continued to call him there, he made the acquaintance, among 
others, of Francis T. Brooke, Esq., then a young resident attorney 
of that place, and afterwards an eminent Judge of the Virginia 
Court of Appeals, between whom and himself a friendly corres- 
pondence and regard subsisted during his life. 

ISTotwithstanding his foreign manners and language, Mr. G. rose 
rapidly in the estimation of the primitive people among whom he 
had cast his lot. His first displays of political ability were by oppo- 
sing the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In 
this he acted in concert with a great many Southern leaders of the 
Republican faith, of whom was his friend Patrick Henry. To other 
objections, Mr. G. added that of opposition to the intervention of 
electors in choosing a President and Vice President. But after its 
adoption by the States he gave to it a cordial and steady support. 

Mr. Gallatin made his debut in political life as a delegate from 
Fayette, associated with John Smilie, in the Pennsylvania conven- 
tion which framed the Constitution of 1790, to which he was 
chosen in October, 1789. Although but twenty-nine years of age, 
he soon acquired in that learned and grave body the rank of one 
of its best debaters, and defenders of his party, or peculiar opinions. 
He took ultra Republican — in modern parlance, Democratic grounds, 
was opposed to the judicial tenure for life, or during good behavior, 
and was for universal suffrage by all free males over the age of 
twenty-one, white and colored, limited only by a longer residence 
than is now required. It is said that the pertinacious advocacy of 
negro suffrage by him and some others, was the reason why the 



170 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

word lohiie was not prefixed to that oi freeman in defining the 
elective franchise — an omission which, as is well known, gave to 
free negroes in Pennsylvania for about forty years, in many places, 
the rights of voters. A current tradition is, that to the weightier 
reasons which were urged by Mr. G., he playfully added that the 
word white might operate rather forbiddingly upon men of swarthy 
visage like himself. 

Simultaneously with the organization of the State Government 
under that Constitution, in December, 1790 — for it was not submitted 
to the people for ratification — Mr. Gallatin was returned, with James 
(Judge) Finley, to the Assembly from Fayette, to which he was 
successively elected every year until 1794, except in 1793. In the 
Legislature he displayed the same readiness in debate which distin- 
guished him in the convention ; but his ultraism was somewhat abated. 
To his high order of talent in this particular — oftentimes the 
evidence of more show than substance, he superadded the possession 
of great financial skill, and a capacity for untiring labor and inde- 
fatigable research. In all his early legislative labors, he exhibited 
not only unusual ability and practical capabilities, but great coolness, 
candor and sincerity. These high qualifications for statesmanship 
led to his election by the legislature, in the session of 1792-'3, to 
the Senate of the United States, although a majority of the 
members were in political opposition to him, and he had himself 
expressed a doubt of his eligibility. We do not know who, or 
how many rivals he had. But when we consider that he was a 
foreigner of but some twelve years residence in America, and of 
only about half that short period in Pennsylvania, away west on its 
southern verge, that he was without family influence, or long 
cemented political associations, and that he spoke our language with 
difficulty, we cannot but wonder at so signal a compliment to his 
character and talents. It must, however, be remembered that at 
this period there was in the United States, and no where more than 
in Pennsylvania, a very strong current of popular sympathy with 
French Republicanism ; and the fact that Mr. G. was considered a 
Frenchman, and confessedly one of superior ability, naturally 
tended to concentrate upon him the favor so lavishly bestowed upon 
those who spoke his language, and fraternized in the tenets and 
partialities of his political school. 

Mr. Gallatin took his seat as a Senator in Congress, in December, 
1793. The question of his eligibility was at once raised against 
him, and referred to a committee, who reported adversely. The 
position taken was that he was constitutionally disqualified, because 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 171 

not nine years a citizen of the United States. Under the old Articles 
of Confederation between the States or Colonies, no provision existed 
for the naturalization of foreigners — each State doing that in its 
own way. They provided, however, that " the free inhabitants of 
each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States." The new Federal Constitution of 
1789 conferred those privileges only upon citizens of each State, 
and in the same sense required a Senator to have been nine years 
a citizen. It was urged in support of his qualification, that having 
been more than nine years an inhabitant, the substitution of the 
word citizen should not have a disqualifying retroactive operation. 
This argument was somewhat unfairly, but effectively met by 
evidence that Mr. G. had in 1785 — not nine years ago, acquired the 
rights of citizenship under the naturalization laws of Virginia — a 
resort imposed upon him to enable him to hold lands in that State. 
The result was that in February, 1794, he was ousted by a strict 
party vote of fourteen to twelve, and the legislature elected James 
Ross, of Pittsburgh, in his stead. 

During this stay in the East — his first wife having been dead 
some two or three years, Mr. Gallatin married Hannah, a daughter 
of Commodore James Nicholson, of J^ew York, the senior captain 
of the American JSTavy. This auspicious and happy matrimonial 
alliance, contracted in October, 1793, continued until near the 
close of his own long life — ^he surviving her only about three 
months.^ In the mean time his friends in Europe, having heard of 



1 Mrs. Gallatin died in the city of New York, in the spring of 1849, in her eighty- 
third year. She was a most estimable woman, a wife worthy of her illustrious hus- 
band. After her marriage, she was his constant companion in all his subsequent public 
life, at home and abroad ; relieving him from many of the ordinary cares and anxieties 
of life by her prudence and management, and sustaining and stimulating him by her 
consolations and counsel. He habitually consulted her not only in private affairs, but 
in all his public movements. 

As the wife of a leading member of Congress, a cabinet minister, and Representative 
of the United States at the two principal courts of Europe, she of course participated 
largely and almost uninterruptedly, during a period of more than the third of a century, 
in the most elegant and illustrious society, at home and abroad. But, while her 
urbanity and courtesy were manifested towards every one within her intercourse, she 
never would, by her compliance or example, sanction any rule of high life which con- 
flicted with the "higher law," by which she professed to be governed as a Christian. 
Such was the respect which this course of conduct inspired, even at Paris, and from a 
French Princess, that when, at one of the greatest fetes known in the circle of Royal 
entertainments — that given to celebrate the birth of the heir presumptive, and which, 
as custom required, was given on the Sabbath, the Duchess D'Angouleme inquired of 
the American minister for his lady, Mr. Gallatin answered, "she is not here, because 



172 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

his fame and fortunes, sent him — perhaps the residue of his patri- 
monial estate — a thousand guineas, which he received through the 
agency of Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution. There- 
upon and therewith he returned to Fayette county, in May, 1794, 
after an absence from it of eighteen months. 

Having thus replenished his exchequer, he, in 1794-'95, bought 
from John and William George "Wilson, the sons and devisees of 
Col. George Wilson, the lands at the mouth of and on both sides 
of George's creek, including the site of l^ew Geneva, a village 
which had been some years before founded by William George 
Wilson, Esq., under the name of " Wilson's Port," but which Mr. 
Gallatin somewhat enlarged and changed, calling it after the name 
of his native city. About the same period he conceived and 
effected the establishment of the New Geneva glass works, which 
were started in 1796 — the first west of the Allegheny moun- 
tains.^ Attendant upon this enterprise, Mr. Gallatin, in 1795, 
formed an extensive trading co-partnership with Messrs. James W. 
Nicholson, his brother-in-law, late of New York, Louis Bourdelon, 
and Charles Anthony Cazenove, late of Geneva, (Switzerland,) 
then of New York, and John Badolet, of Washington county, 
Pa.,^ under the name of A. Gallatin ^ Co., to continue for three 
years, with a capital of $20,000, subject to be increased. The 
business was to consist of buying and selling goods and lands, &c. 
The Wilson lands, several lots in Greensboro, over the river, 
and twenty-two acres adjoining that village, were purchased by 
Mr. Gallatin, and held in trust for this partnership. How long it 



it is Sunday ;" the Duchess at ouce assented to her absence and said, " Mrs. Gallatin 
does right — she teaches us our duty." 

As a set-off to this, we find the following among the "Foreign Items," in Nubs' 
Register, September 20, 1817: — "There are several rumors that the Royal family of 
France has not treated Mr. Gallatin and his lady with the respect due to their station 
at court. It is said that the Duchess of Angouleme addressed a few words to Mrs. 
Gallatin in French, who replied, 'I do not speak French, Princess,' on which the 
Princess said, 'I do not speak English,' — and turned her back on Mrs. Gallatin." 

Besides Mrs. Gallatin, three others of the daughters of Commodore Nicholson became 
the wives of members of Congress: — one, of William Few, a Representative and Senator 
from Georgia; another, of John Montgomery, a Representative from Maryland, and the 
other, of Joshua Seney, also a Representative from Maryland, — the father of Joshua 
Seney, Esq , formerly of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, afterwards of Tiffin, Ohio. 

2 See Chap. XIII. — "Our Early Manufactures." 

2 Afterwards a prominent man in Greene county, of which he and John Flenniken, 
(father of R. P. Flenniken, Esq., of Uniontown, Pennsylvania.) were the first Associate 
Judges. 



^H. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 173 

continued, and what became of it, we do not know. It was the 
origin of the long and valued residence of James W. ITicholson 
and family in that vicinity ; and in connection with the glass 
works, and while New Geneva was the head of navigation and 
trade on the Monongahela, it did** no doubt a thriving business. 
But men and trade are subject to great mutations. This co-part- 
nership must not, however, be confounded with that of the old 
Glass Works Company, which was a separate concern, although 
the two were connected to some extent. And, we believe, Mr. 
Gallatin's growing political fortunes induced him, early in their 
career, to withdraw from both. 

We now come to a part of Mr. Gallatin's political life which is 
the most difficult to comprehend and exhibit : — we mean his con- 
duct in the series of events denominated the " Whiskey Insur- 
rection." This is not the place to narrate those events — they are 
reserved for another sketch. Mr. Gallatin was so prominent an 
actor, especially in the closing scenes, that, assuming the reader to 
be familiar with them, we will not incumber our present purpose 
with any tedious repetitions. 

Caution, sagacity, and a love of popular favor were largely 
developed ingredients in Mr. Gallatin's mental construction ; and 
he was so happily constituted as to be able effectually to exert any 
one of them without over-reaching, or impairing the force of the 
others. Of this, no part of his eventful public life affords clearer 
evidence than the safety and success with which he trod the 
perilous paths of this Vesuvian epoch. 

Regarding the insurrectionary movements as extending over a 
period of about three years — from September, 1791, to October, 
1794, Mr. Gallatin's course of conduct therein is divisible into two 
parts, each of which is distinct, and very different from the other. 
The line of separation is in the eighteen mouths — from November, 
1792, to May, 1794, during which he was absent from Western 
Pennsylvania. Within this period of absence, events of absorbing 
interest to him occurred : — his election to the Senate of the United 
States, the contest for his seat therein and his ejection therefrom, — 
his courtship and marriage of Miss Nicholson, and his negotiations 
in Europe and efforts in this country for the establishment of his 
New Geneva Glass Works. The anxieties and kind and hopeful 
feelings attendant upon this cluster of great and good things, 
favored by his protracted absence from the infected district, would 
naturally tend to sever him from the plots and counterplots of the 
incipient rebellion, and soften down his insurgent animosities, 



174 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

supposing him to have been heretofore within their embrace and 
influence. That he was so — that he was really an instigator of the 
resistance in its early stages, is a conclusion, from the evidence, 
which is "irresistible. In assigning to him this position, so 
variant from that which has b^en generally ascribed to him, we 
indulge no desire to detract from the merit of his pacific exertions 
in the later stages of the strife, nor to pluck one leaf from the 
laurels which grow upon his grave. The effort to do so, would be 
as vain as ungenerous ; for, in the light in which we view his con- 
duct, there was no criminality in his early purposes, nor dishonor 
in the change they underwent. 

It is needless to say that Mr. Gallatin's mental habitudes and 
party affiliations were such as to lead him into the path of 
resistance. Implicit obedience to oppressive legislation was not 
among the canons of his political faith. And he had not that 
acquiescence in the cabinet counsels of Washington which would 
impel him to their defence against the antagonisms of his political 
associates. Besides, his own popularity had not become so 
impregnable as to defy the assaults of those who stood ready to 
raze its rising greatness. Hence he allowed himself to become 
identified with the early manifestations of popular resistance, and 
relied upon his caution and sagacity to save him from any perilous 
consequences which might ensue, but which were not perhaps then 
contemplated. 

It is a creditable fact that no overt acts of resistance to the excise 
law, or its officers, were ever committed in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of Mr. Gallatin's residence and personal influence. This, 
however, was owing more to the absence of irritating causes than 
to any prevalence of the spirit of submission among the people. 
And doubtless he difi'used around him enough of his caution and 
conservatism to prevent any outburst, which might have involved 
him in danger or disgrace. But in Greene, then the "upper end" 
of Washington county, and in contiguous parts of Western Virginia, 
there were found unmistakable traces of his influence upon leading 
men, calculated to foment resistance to the law and its officers, and 
to involve them, as eventually happened to some of them, in the 
privations and perils of governmental prosecutions ; — results for 
which they censured him the more because he escaped upon the 
merits of his subsequent services in favor of " law and order." 

The most clear and decisive evidence of Mr. Gallatin's leader- 
ship in the early movements of the resistants is his participation in 
the "meeting of sundry inhabitants of the western counties of 



OH, VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 175 

Pennsylvania, at Pittsburgh, August 21, 1792," — the proceedings 
of which are given at large in another place in these sketches.* He 
was the Secretary of that meeting, and, no doubt, conspicuous in 
its deliberations. Its resolves were unanimous, an^ they are 
certainly very reprehensible, treading closely upon the confines of 
treasonable resistance. Moreover, the officers of the law had 
already been resisted and maltreated, and Mr. Gallatin should have 
seen that the promulgation of the last resolution was giving 
sanction and incentive to such outrages. And it is no palliation, 
that it was but the echo of a proscriptive and incendiary edict 
previously fulminated by a meeting at Washington. So much the 
worse. The first perpetration of a mischievous act may be excused, 
while its repetition should be severely censured.^ It is worthy of 
notice that all the apologists of Mr. Gallatin's conduct in the 
'•Insurrection," omit any mention of this meeting, or case over it 
very lightly.® Better have seized it boldly and condemned it, as 
he did himself. Although it mars somewhat the symmetry of his 
character, it detracts nothing from its greatness. 

We do not find that Mr. Gallatin took part in any other meeting 
or proceeding connected with the disorder of the times, until after 
his return to the West in the spring of 1794. Having been chosen 



* See Chap. XL — ;" Whiskey Insurrection.'' 

^ The censure here bestowed accords with Mr. Gallatin's own condemnation of his 
conduct in that transaction, as we find it expressed in his published Speech before the 
House of Representatives of the Pennsylvania Legislature, in December, 1794, upon 
the question of declaring the elections of members from the "four western counties," 
in October, '94, unconstitutional and void, by reason of the insurrection ; in which 
speech — an able and valuable document — he takes occasion to review the principal 
causes and events of that extraordinary excitement. 

"I wish not," says he, "to exculpate myself, where I feel I have been to blame. 
The sentiments thus expressed were not illegal or criminal ; yet I will freely acknowledge 
that they were violent, intemperate and reprehensible For, by attempting to render 
the office contemptible, they tended to diminish that respect for the execution of the 
laws which is essential to the maiatainance of a free government. But whilst I feel 
regret at the remembrance, though no hesitation in this open confession of that, my 
only political sin, let me add that the blame ought to fall where it is deserved. That 
meeting was not one of delegates of the people, but of individuals voluntarily 
assembled. It was not a combination of the people," &c. 

^ Fiudley's ^^ History, &c." Ilev. Dr. Caruahan's iec^Mre, &c. The former covers it 
over and displaces it so adroitly as to give it neither prominence nor distinctness in his 
narrative ; while the latter, who evidently has made Findley the basis of his observa- 
tions, omits any notice of it, and is thereby foiled into the error of saying that Mr. 
Gallatin attended no meeting "growing out of the insurrection," prior to the delegate 
meeting at Parkinson's Ferry, on the 14th August, 1794. 



176 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

to the Senate of the United States, he was not a candidate for 
reelection to the State Legislature, in October, 1793. Other 
pursuits, of honor, happiness and profit now engage his attention ; 
and perhaps he purposely prolonged his absence from the scene of 
tumult, until he saw that his presence was necessary to save his 
friends from the ruin to which they were rushing. 

When he returned to Fayette, in May, 1794, he found the fires 
of rebellion just beginning to blaze, and with commendable alacrity, 
enhanced doubtless by the consciousness that he had himself 
helped to scatter the coals which kindled it, he betook himself to 
its extinguishment. He kept away from the tumultuous as- 
semblages at Mingo creek meeting-house, Braddock's Field, and 
elsewhere, in Washington and Allegheny counties. He, perhaps, 
thought it best to let the fire spend its fury in those regions, and 
set himself to prevent its spread into his own vicinage. In this he 
was nearly successful. Had he returned to the scene a little sooner 
he might perhaps have been entirely so. 

The spectacle had now become so alarming as to appall the 
stoutest hearts. In the language of an eminent coteraporary 
writer," "Men of property and intelligence who had contributed to 
kindle the flame under the common error of being able to regulate 
its heat, now trembled at the extent of the conflagration. It had 
passed the limits assigned to it, and was no longer subject to their 
control." 

Fortunately, our new Federal Grovernment, in this the first trial 
of its strength, had at its head a man who had been accustomed 
to contemplate and surmount all sorts of dangers. He confronted 
this one with his usual moderation and firmness ; and, in the means 
employed, aftbrdcd ample verge and encouragement for the subsi- 
diary efforts of all well disposed men who were dwellers upon 
eminences in the scene of strife. Of such was Mr. Gallatin. And 
it is no disparagement of his illustrious compeers — Ross, Bracken- 
ridge, Edgar, Findley and Smilie, some of whom, like himself, had 
stood god-fathers to, if not begotten, the infant monster, to assign 
to him a more bold, untiring, discreet and successful activity in 
its subjugation than was exerted by any other. He attacked the 
wild and warlike schemes of Bradford and his followers, in front 
and rear, covertly and openiy, privately and publicly, in committees 
and before the masses, and always with success. But in doing all 



T MarthalTt Washington, Vol. II., 346. 



en. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 177 

this he had often to encounter the most trying emergencies, 
and bring into exercise all his powers; at one time aiFecting 
compliance — scudding before the gale; at another evading the 
issue tendered, and drawing his adversary off upon some more 
assailable ground : now, coaxing and persuading — anon, defying 
and intimidating ; gaining all the while upon the entrenchments of 
the foe, and upon the confidence of the multitude. 

The severest test which his aims and abilities underwent was at 
the Parkinson's Ferry meeting, of August 14th, '94. Among 
other displays of argument and evasion made at that juncture, 
having ventured to intimate his disapproval of the burning or 
Kirkpatrick's barn — "What," said a fiery fellow in the crowd, " do 
you blame us for that?" Gallatin was embarrassed for a moment, 
and paused. His success depended upon his reply. " If you had 
burned Kirkpatrick in it you would have done something, but the 
barn had done no harm." "Aye, aye," said his interrogator. 
'• that's true enough." The threatened tumult subsided. 

His resort to the secret ballot, at the subsequent meeting of the 
Committee at Brownsville, is a signal illustration of his coolness 
and sagacity. JSTor was there throughout the whole of his brilliant 
forensic career a fi.ner instance of his confidence in the force 
of truth, when not countervailed by extraneous influences. He 
saw, through the mists of terror and distraction, which the 
unthinking populace bad thrown around the Committee, that they 
really wished to accept the proffered amnesty, and thus end the 
strife ; but that they feared the taunts of their neighbors, and the 
opprobrium implied in any act of submission to a government thev 
had so often defied. The secret ballot — the only pure medium or 
popular suffrage, enabled them to give a true declaration of their 
convictions, without an open defiance of the dangers which 
attended it. It was the potent alchemy which transformed confu- 
sion into order, and fiery frowns into peaceful smiles. It ended 
the strite — except as to the retributions which ensued. 

It is thus seen that Mr. Gallatin passed through all the stage- 
and phases of this insurrectionary excitement, from an active par- 
ticipant to an active opponent ; yet so as therein never to endanger 
Ms own safety, or forfeit his favor with the people. An inferior 
man would have overleaped himself and fallen, if not on the other 
side, at least so low as never to recover. Even the shrewd an(' 
versatile Brackenridge lost for a while his strong hold upon the 
popular confidence, not because he was not true to his politica' 
associates, or lacked in wise and masterlyconformityto the circum- 
12 



178 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

stances which surrounded him, but because he was sometinies too 
blunt in his feigned attacks, and too sharp in his real ones — too 
frank when he should have been more reserved — too bold when he 
should have been more cautious. "We will presently see how 
diiferently the people judged the conduct of these two eminent 
actors in this most anomalous of all the instances of political 
upheaval and subsidence. 

It is well known that Washington county (which then included 
Greene,) and the southern part of Allegheny county, were denomi- 
nated, and rightly, too, "the seat of the rebellion," There its 
master spirits rose, and there they fell. In the latter county, in 
the toion of Pittsburgh, Mr. Brackenridge resided — Hugh Henry 
Brackenridge, an eminent and learned lawyer, author of " Modern 
Chivalry," and afterwards a Judge of the Supreme Court of the 
State. Mr. Gallatin resided fifty miles apart form him, in the south- 
west corner of Fayette. Both were distinguished leaders in the 
republican or democratic school of politics. Both had fought the 
fire of the insurrection in its fiercest forms, and yet both had, by 
their seeming compliances with its exactions, won for themselves 
the honor — for so the "majority" regarded it, of being traduced 
by the officers and advocates of the government. 

In October, 1794, Mr. Gallatin was one of the republican candi- 
dates for the Assembly from Fayette — Mr. Brackenridge was the 
candidate of the same party for Congress, from the rebellious 
district. There were three other candidates already in the field — 
Thomas Scott and Daniel Hamilton, of Washington, and John 
Woods, of Pittsburgh ; but he had the lead, and was confident of 
election. But his wily policy in the insurrection had given great 
offence even to many of his own political friends. They wanted 
to shake him off. To affect this, a few persons got together at 
Ganonsburg, a few days before the election, and determined to run 
Mr. Gallatin against the field — even though he did not reside in 
the district, and, it is said, without consulting him. The result 
was that he was elected over all competitors — one account says by 
. a large, others say by a small majority ; probably by only a plurality. 
It is also said that this was accomplished by its having been given 
out that Mr. Brackenridge (who came in "second best") had 
declined. It is certain, however, that but a small vote was polled — 
in some of the election districts none at all. Mr. G. was, on the 
same day, elected to the Assembly of the State from Fayette. But, 
upon the assembling of the legislature, in December, both branches 
vacated the elections of members that year from the counties of 



CH. Vir.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 179 

Allegheny, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland, on account 
of the insurrection — declaring them "unconstitutional and void." 
New elections were held in February, 1795, and every one of the 
ejected members returned again, except Senator John Moore, of 
Westmoreland, who declined being a candidate, and Presley Carr 
Lane, of Fayette, was elected in his stead. On this occasion Mr. 
Gallatin made and published a long and able speech before the 
House, in defence of his seat. The speech may be regarded as his 
history of the insurrection ; and as such we will have further use 
for it in another sketch. 

As the Congress to which Mr. Gallatin was elected did not meet 
until December, 1795, he was enabled to serve under both elections. 
He was successively reelected to Congress in the years 1796, 1798 
and 1800, from the same district — Allegheny, Washington and 
Greene, the latter county having been erected in 1796. 

" There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, 
leads on to fortune," and Mr. Gallatin had now taken it in that 
stage. With the commanding talents for public life w^hich he 
possessed, his success was now secure. His Congressional career 
covered a period of intense party excitement, embracing the whole 
of the Presidential term of the elder Adams, and the two last years 
of his illustrious predecessor. He rose almost at once to one of 
the highest seats of the opposition benches, and held it bravely and 
uninterruptedly. In those days great and grave questions were 
the subjects of discussion, subjects of first impression — new, vital, 
and exciting. Of these were the systems of finance which sprung 
out of the national debt, the assumption of the war debts of the 
States, the tariff, the funding system, a national bank, and all the 
innumerable collateral questions which attended upon these great 
ones, like the moons and belts of Saturn. Added to these were 
others of a more angry character, such as the alien and sedition 
laws, and all that series of plagues blown upon both our foreign 
and domestic relations from the shores of revolutionary France. 
In all these great questions Mr. G. bore a conspicuous and influ- 
ential part, battling side by side with Madison, Giles, Livingston, 
Macon, Yarnum and Randolph, against Hamilton, Ames, Otis, 
Sitgreaves, Bayard and Marshall. There were giants in those 
days, and these were of them. 

There is one vote given by Mr. G. at the opening of the last 
session in General Washington's administration, which we would 
rather he had evaded or reversed. In the responsive address by the 
House to the President's annual message, they proposed to say 



180 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

to him that, " For our country's sake, for the sake of republican 
liberty, it is our earnest wish that your example may be the guide 
of your successors; and thus, after being the ornament and 
safeguard of the present age, become the patrimony of our 
descendants." It was moved to strike this out, and Mr. G. was 
one of the twenty-four who voted for doing so. In this, however, 
he had the company of Wm. B. Giles, Edward Livingston, and 
Andrew Jackson, with other stars fof lesser light. The motion 
failed, and^then Mr. G. voted for the address, although his associates 
named held out against it to the last. We exhibit this ultraism of 
party rancor more in regret than in resentment, and are even glad 
to record that Mr. G. did not cling to it with the tenacity of others 
who have risen to higher fame. 

Although a firm partisan of the popular school, Mr. G. did not, 
on many great occasions, allow his party afhliations to drag him 
down into factious opposition. Especially was this the case as to 
the measures sought to be adopted by the administration of John 
Adams, in 1797-'8, having in view a war with republican France, 
for spoliations on our commerce — one of which measures resulted 
in again calling Washington to the head of the army, with the 
rank of Lieutenant General, or, rather — General. In this patriotic 
manliness he deserted the lead of such party zealots as Findley and 
Giles and Livingston, and his course is the more commendable as 
it was against the popular leanings towards a nation to whom he 
was allied by the treble ties of lineage, language and party alle- 
giance. 

Up to the period of Mr. Gallatin's advent to Congress, there 
existed no standing Committee of Ways and Means, that favorite 
legislative palladium against the financial schemes of the executive. 
And it is said that Mr. G. was largely instrumental in its creation. 
Thereupon he became one of its members, and continued to be 
during every successive session while in Congress. 

The reported congressional debates of that period, meagre 
though they be, concur with tradition and cotemporary writers 
in representing Mr. Gallatin as a fiuent debater, always cool, 
always ready, dignified, direct, candid and convincing. In all 
great conflicts, he was the champion of his party, its Achilles in 
attack, its Hector in defense, and its Nestor in counsel. Mr. 
Gallatin was particularly at home on financial questions. In this, 
he had the advantage of all his compeers, Giles being too lazy, 
Livingston too discursive, Nicholas too impetuous, Randolph too 
erratic, and Madison too judicial. But Gallatin's mind was of 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 181 

that exact, systematic construction which fitted him for such sub- 
jects. He had, moreover, strong powers of analysis and con- 
centration, united to unfaltering endurance of labor: — traits of 
character which grew stronger with age, and went with him to 
the grave. 

Mr. Jefferson, who presided in the Senate during Mr. Adams' 
Presidency, became an early admirer and devoted friend of Mr. 
Gallatin. Their relations were always intimate and confiding. 
Indeed, during some stages of the great struggle of 1797-1800, 
ending in his elevation to the Presidency, he considered Mr. Gal- 
latin his most steadfast coadjutor and defender, standing by him 
in Confess when others of more vaunt but less valor forsook bim 
and fled. So he wrote to a friend, in the retrospect of affer years; 
and John Randolph said of him, in 1824, that he had done as 
much as any other man to achieve the revolution of 1800, and had 
got as little for it.® In this, we think, John run out his devoted- 
ness too far. Mr. Gallatin got all he ever asked, perhaps all he 
ever wished. 

In 1797, the Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an Act to 
procure twenty thousand stand of arms for the use of the State. 
This, and the then imminent danger of a war with France, greatly 
stimulated the establishment of gun factories, or armories, public 
and private, throughout the country. Among others, Mr. Gallatin 
embarked in the business; and in company with Melchor Baker,' a 
practical gunsmith, in 1799, or 1800, established an extensive 
manufactory of muskets, broad-swords, &c., in what is now Nichol- 
son township, on land now owned by Philip Keefover. For a 
while they gave employment to between fifty and one hundred 
workmen. In the State Treasury accounts for 1800, we find two 
payments in that year to Albert Gallatin of $2666.66 each, " on 



8 «'I once, Sir, had the honoi- of being under the federal regime in what was called 
the reign of terror. I then enjoyed the liberty of speech — I had a right to protest 
against the acts of the men in power. The present Secretary of the Treasury [Mr. 
Gallatin] was attempted to be stopped in debate on the rule which required no man to 
speak more than once to any question. That great man — for great let me call him, 
laughed in derision at the attempt." — John Randolph's Indignation Speech in Congress, 
May 26, 1812, on not being allowed to speak against declaring War, until the House would 
decide to consider his Resolution. 

3 One of the unfortunate Col. Lochry's men in the expedition to join in Clarke's 
Campaign of 1781. See note to Chap. XVI.— "Outline of Ci^il and Political 
History." &c. After the suspension of the gun factory, Mr. Baker removed to Clarks- 
burg, Virginia. 



182 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

account of his contract to supply the State with two thousand 
stand of arms." The partnership had also, about the same time, 
a contract with the national government, whose further patronage 
of the factory was eminently desirable. But, upon the election of 
Mr. Jefterson to the Presidency, in February, 1801, it became a 
foregone conclusion that Mr. Gallatin must go into the cabinet as 
head of the Treasury Department. He determined to accept the 
ofhce. But, before he could do so, it became necessary, in his 
estimation, to sever himself from all governmental contracts, sub- 
sisting, or in prospect ; and from all interest therein, direct or 
indirect, fixed or contingent. He recognized the human frailty 
which makes "lead us not into temptation" a most wise and 
necessary petition in the best of all prayers. He therefore 
deferred his acceptance of the secretaryship until he could become 
discharged from the existing contract, and, by settling with his 
partner, and withdrawing from the business, relieve his own ofiicial 
conduct from suspicion and Mr. Baker from the disability to enter 
into future contracts, which his further connection with him would 
impose. Mr. Gallatin accordingly came home, dissolved the co- 
partnership, and sold out his interest in it and its contracts to Mr. 
Baker. The settlement required an amicable reference, in which, 
it is said, Mr. Gallatin behaved with great liberality towards his 
less wealthy partner. Mr. Baker carried on the business for some 
years afterwards — how long, we do not certainly know. In 1804, 
we find the State paying him ^1333.33 for supplying arms. But, 
the national armories at Springfield and Harper's Ferry becoming 
too strong for private competition, the old Fayette Gun Factory 
was abandoned. 

Having thus disencumbered himself of this gun contract busi- 
ness, Mr. Gallatin was, on the 14th of May, 1801, appointed by 
Mr. Jefierson to be Secretary of the Treasury, which, but for that 
disability, would have been conferred upon him ten weeks earlier. 
In assigning him to this exalted place, the new republican President 
was not embarrassed by the conflicting claims of any competitor. 
He gave it to Mr. Gallatin in accordance with his own wishes and 
in compliance with the unanimous call of his political friends. 
No other man was thought of by him, or named by them. Mr. 
Gallatin had well earned this exalted cabinet place by his efficient 
political services and eminent financial abilities. He continued to 
hold it during the entire residue of Mr. Jefierson's two Presidential 
terms, the whole of the first term of Mr. Madison, and until 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 183 

February, 1814, in the second,'" — the longest cabinet tenure ever 
enjoyed by one man since the foundation of the government. 
Except the Secretaries of State, Madison and Monroe, his minis- 
terial associates were not men of superior talent, or great eminence. 
The truth is, that in those days the heads of the departments of 
State and the Treasury, with the President, constituted " the 
government," — the other two departments, of War and the Navy, 
being regarded as of secondary importance, to be filled by second- 
rate men." 

Having accompanied Mr. Gallatin somewhat leisurely into the 
field of his greatest fame, in which nearly one-third of his public 
life was spent, we must not rush over it without some attempt to 
trace the leading features of his financial policy. Fortunately 
these are so prominent as to require no nice exercise of skill in 
the limner. 

We have said that the place and plan of Mr. Gallatin's youthful 
education were eminently adapted to his future career. " Just as 
the twig is bent, the tree's inclined," is an adage of profound 
truth. Nearly all the peculiarities of human character and effort 
find their solution in the influences and habits of early life. 
Among the Genevans, great stress and stringency were given to 



1" Althougli Mr. Gallatin went to Europe, as a negotiator for peace, in April, 1813, 
lie continued to hold the secretaryship until February, 1814. If we discount these ten 
months from his term, then Gideon Granger, as Postmaster General from November, 
1801, to March, 1814, exceeded him by about five months. 

11 We mean no undue disparagement of the worthy men who filled those ofiices under 
the four first Presidents. Except, perhaps, during a part of the war of 1812-15, they 
were fully adequate to the duties of their departments, and discharged them well. 
Until more recently, the head of the Postoffice Department, and the Attorney General, 
were not considered cabinet officers. These were some times eminent and able men — 
Pickering, Granger, Meigs ; and Edward Randolph, Parsons, Eodney, Pinkney, &c. 

Without intending any invidious comparison with more ancient or modern cabinets, 
we may point to those of Mr. Monroe and J. Q. Adams as combinations of pre-eminent 
abilities : — John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, W. H. Crawford, Secretary of the 
Treasury, John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, and Smith Thompson, Secretary of the 
Navy, under Mr. Monroe ; and Henry Clay, Secretary of State, Richard Rush, Secretary 
of the Treasury, James Barbour, Secretary of War, and Samuel L. Southard, Secretary 
of the Navy, under Mr. Adams ; and John McLean, Postmaster General, and William 
Wirt, Attorney General, under both. Mr. Monroe's administration was so signally 
exempt from party contentions as to acquire the designation of "the era of good 
feeling." Mr. Adams sought to prolong it, but failed, owing to the peculiar circum- 
stances of his election, and the unbounded popularity of his competitor — Gen. Jackson ; 
who, having gilded the lustre of his coimtry's arms, was destined to impress himself 
upon its polity and history. 



184 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIT. 

the maxim that debt was dangerous, and disability to pay dis- 
graceful. They built upon this the somewhat unjust corollary, 
that the children of a bankrupt were disqualified for any public 
trust 80 long as their father's debts were unpaid. The policy thus 
inculcated, was a ruling ingredient in the youthful prejudices of 
Mr. Gallatin, and controlled his after life, private and public. He 
abhorred debts of all sorts, and exacted their just and full payment 
from individuals and governments. He knew how to be generous; 
but generosity and defalcation were not kindred terms in his 
vocabulary. Least of all could he tolerate repudiation by a debtor 
iiaving power to enforce it against a needy or helpless creditor. 
To illustrate this trait of his character, requires us to go back a 
-iittle upon his public pathwa}^ 

The requirements and revulsions of our Revolution had brought 
upon the States and the Confederacy a mass of debt, at home and 
abroad. Its evidences were in every form, from "contracts" with 
the King of France and the States General of the i!^etherlande, 
down to a sixpenny "certificate of loan." The foreign debts gave 
no trouble, except — to provide for their payment. But the domes- 
tic indebtedness was as complicated as an ever-changing Congress 
and thirteen independent, sovereign sub-debtors, all compelled to 
anticipate resources which were never realized and to sustain an 
ever-falling credit by increasing the burdens which bore it down, 
could make it. Its evidences were the currency of the country ; 
and they came, in time, to be held by all sorts and conditions of 
men, from the poorest soldier up to the richest banker. These 
had acquired them at every conceivable rate of value and deprecia- 
tion, from par to a hundred, or a thousand for one. The most that 
the old Confederation Congress and the States could do during 
the war and for some time after its close, was to settle with their 
creditors, consolidate the debts, and issue new certificates of 
indebtedness for the accruing interest and the depreciation. With 
all this, however, Mr. Gallatin had nothing to do. But when the 
new federal government was formed, in 1789, it, by the Constitu- 
tion and laws early enacted, as in duty bound, assumed the pa}'- 
ment of all those multiform debts, so far as they were incurred for 
the general cause. The mode adopted for their security and pay- 
ment, was almost as complicated as had been their forms of 
creation. The foreign debt, unpaid, had to be provided for by 
loans. The States and the domestic creditors were subjected to 
what was called the Minding St/stem, devised by Alexander Hamil- 
ton, Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington. Mr. 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN- 185 

Gallatin, though not in Congress at the time this system was 
adopted, — in 1790-'92, advocated the plan, but stoutly resisted 
some of its leading details. 

To make the reader thoroughly understand the old debts of the 
country, and the system adopted for their funding and payment, 
would be a task as hopeless as its accomplishment would be un- 
interesting. Suffice it to say here, that the funding system con- 
sisted in subscriptions to a national loan, the subscribers paying 
therefor in some one or more of the various adjusted evidences of 
debt, and taking in lieu thereof certificates of government stock, 
payable or redeemable in installments, bearing interest and trans- 
ferable. In this way the home debt became a marketable com- 
modity which its holders could sell, and the government, as well 
as others, could buy, before, or when due. By one of the pro- 
visions of the system, 21,500,000 dollars of stock was authorized, 
to absorb the debts of the States, without having previously 
ascertained their amounts with accuracy ; leaving the amounts of 
surplus, or deficiency, of State debts, beyond or below the amount 
allowed of the stock to each State, to be otherwise thereafter pro- 
vided for. To this Mr. Gallatin was opposed, as doing injustice to 
some of the States, and more than justice to others. He was for 
having each State's share of the debt first settled, and then give 
to each a correspondent amount of stock. But he was reconciled 
to this upon the ground that the measure was necessary to give 
immediate relief to some of the States, whose people were groan- 
ing under unequal and oppressive taxation. The relief consisted 
in enabling them to pay their taxes in the State scrip which was 
convertible into stock. But the most objectionable feature of the 
funding system adopted, in Mr. Gallatin's estimation, consisted in 
its not providing for full and entire payment of the principal and 
interest of the debts it was designed to fund. These it cut up 
into unequal parts — giving to one part six per cent, interest, to 
another three, and to another no interest for ten years. This 
seeming injustice received a plausible advocacy in the increased 
value which the funding gave to the debts, and in the well known 
fact that holders had acquired much of their amounts at prices 
greatly below their standard value. But Mr. Gallatin looked upon 
it as repudiation. His Genevan education was against it. He 
could not see that the precedent inability of Congress and the 
States to sustain the credit of their paper, and to pay the interest 
thereon, was any excuse for now disowning portions of their liabili- 
ties. Congressional action was beyond his reach. But being in 



186 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

the Legislature of Pennsylvania, he advocated successfully the 
payment by the State, in a mode satisfactory to creditors, of all 
those portions of interest on her debts, which were unprovided for 
in the national loan. 

Early in his congressional service, Mr. Gallatin saw, as he 
thought, that the statesmen of that era, even those of his own 
political party, did not understand and appreciate the true principles 
of finance applicable to our government, and to its indebted 
condition. This induced him, in 1796, to give his views to the 
public under the modest title of "A Sketch on Finances." This 
little treatise greatly elevated him in the esteem of the republican 
party ; not because it enunciated any new system, or developed any 
hitherto undiscovered principles of finance, applicable to our fiscal 
affairs. It claimed no such distinction. It advocated a sinking 
fund into which all the accumulated surplus revenues should fall, 
to be sacredly applied to the payment of the public debt. But 
there was nothing new in this. That fund had been already 
established. That it had not been very productive was the fault 
of the times and not of those who administered it. The sketch 
was, in part, a very distant echo of the popular complaints of 
extravagance and unequal taxation ; and it sounded a little louder 
and in clearer notes than had heretofore been given out from 
the high places of power, the pleasing calls for retrenchment and 
reform. The unpretending dissertation was, nevertheless, one of 
real merit and utility. It presented the true financial policy of 
the country at that period in bold relief, and in vivid colors ; and 
advocated, with peculiar force of argument and appeal, the necessity 
of keeping up the widest possible margin of excess of revenue 
beyond expenditure, so as therewith to pay off, as fast as it came 
due, or faster, the public debt, without a resort to new loans. He 
fought the dogma that a national debt was a national blessing, and 
contended with all the earnestness of resisted truth, that the 
payment of interest by nations, as well as individuals, was a burden 
upon progress and a tax upon industry. Now-a-days all this is 
looked upon as very obvious statesmanship. But then it required 
strong advocacy and clear elucidation to render it acceptable to the 
people and their representatives : so deeply had they become 
imbued with the errors of European systems, and the loan expe- 
dients of our Revolutionary era. 

The policy and purposes, thus advocated by Mr. Gallatin, became 
banner pledges of the republican party in the great struggle of 
1800 ; not that the Federalists disowned them, but having been 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 187 

long in power, without acquiring the prestige of their fruitful 
application, they could not rally under them so successfully as did 
their adversaries. The consequence to Mr. Gallatin was, that when 
his party succeeded to power in 1801, he was regarded by both 
parties as the embodiment and exponent of a new, progressive 
financial system which had now to be inaugurated and enforced ; 
and therefore he must be, and was, as already stated, called to the 
helm of the Treasury Department. 

Of course Mr. Gallatin persisted steadily in the policy which he 
and his party had so earnestly advocated — the utmost practicable 
increase of revenue, and the utmost practicable entrenchment of 
expenditure, postponing all minor calls upon the Treasury, however 
loud and tempting, to the one grand leading purpose of a rapid 
extinguishment of the national debt. Happily for his success and 
fame, all branches of the government, legislative and executive, 
seconded and sustained his efforts. Moreover, the business of the 
country had just begun to recover from the deep depression into 
which it had sunk during the Revolution, and the ten or fifteen 
years which ensued. The public debts had all been funded, and 
the sources of revenue established. It was conceded that all this 
was wisely done ; and, except in a few minor details, they were not 
disturbed. The revenue from duties on foreign goods had risen 
from less than three millions, in 1791, to over ten millions and 
three quarters in 1801. The aggregate of all the revenues — 
customs, internal duties, direct tax, postages, public lands and 
miscellaneous, rose from less than four and a half millions, in 1791, 
to nearly thirteen millions, in 1801 ; while the expenditures, which 
in 1791 were about one million and three quarters, or nearly forty 
per cent, of the revenues, rose, in 1801, to less than five millions — 
about the same proportion ; but leaving about nine millions to go to 
the debt. The revenues of the first period of eleven years and nine 
months, from April 1st, 1789, to January 1st, 1801, were a little 
over sixty-five and a quarter millions, while the ordinary expendi- 
tures were nearly thirty-seven millions — leaving less than twenty- 
eight and a half millions to go to the debt — not half enough to 
pay its annual interest. In the next period of eleven years and 
nine months, from January 1st, 1801, to October 1st, 1812, the 
aggregate revenues were nearly one hundred and fifty millions and 
a half, and the gross ordinary expenses a little over seventy-one 
millions — leaving a surplus applicable to the debt of over seventy- 
nine millions. Mr. Gallatin had therefore full coffers whereupon 
to base his operations. Wherein, then, it is asked, consists his 



188 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

merits as a financier ? We answer, in husbanding and rightly 
applying the resources at his command, and in devising for Congress 
and executing when enacted, measures for their augmentation : 
and, above all, in resisting by argument and influence any undue 
diversion of the revenues to other objects than the sure and rapid 
reduction of the debt. 

The public debt, on the first of April, 1801, was, in round 
numbers, 80,000,000 (eighty millions) dollars — its annual interest, 
$4,180,000. The purchase of Louisiana from ITapoleon, in 1803, 
added $15,000,000 to the principal, and about the same time an agree- 
ment, by Jay's treaty of 1794, to pay over three millions to British 
subjects came due. Thus the debt was increased to about ninety- 
eight and a half millions, and its annual interest to alout five and 
a quarter millions. With these resources and liabilities Mr. 
Gallatin so managed the finances as to reduce the principal of the 
debt on the first of April, 1812, to a little over forty-five millions, 
bearing an annual interest of only $2,220,000. He achieved this 
great result by inducing Congress, early in his ofiicial career, to 
set apart an annual appropriation of $7,300,000 for the payment of 
interest and gradual reduction of the principal ; which was increased 
to $8,000,000 after the purchase of Louisiana. He was ably 
seconded in this course of policy by President Jefferson, and 
upheld in it by Congress. 

But the smooth, deep current of financial fullness upon which 
Mr. Gallatin had sailed so long, was destined soon to be broken 
by the shoals and storms of war. The restrictive systems of 
France and England had blighted our blooming commerce ; and 
our government was impelled to corresponding commercial restric- 
tions, which made sad inroads upon our revenues. The aggregate 
revenues which, in 1808, had risen to over seventeen millions, fell 
in 1809, to less than eight millions, and were destined to still 
further depression ; while the expenditures, which never in Mr. 
Jefierson's administration exceeded six and a half millions, came 
to more than double that sum in 1812. Of course new loans had 
to be resorted to, to meet this deficiency, and the still growing 
deficiencies which war must inevitably create. At the close of the 
war, the public debt had swollen to $120,000,000. 

Mr. Gallatin, as well as other statesmen of sagacity, saw, years 
before it came, the imminent danger of war. And when appealed 
to, to allow a fund to accumulate to meet, or provide munitions to 
encounter the shock, he resisted it; saying, "suflicient unto the 
day is the evil thereof," and if you have the funds you will 



CH. VII.] .LBEllT GALLATIN. 189 

squander them : — let us put our trust in the patience and patriotism 
of the people, to bear the burdens of privation and taxation when 
the emergency arises : — in the mean time let us get ready for new, 
by paying our old debts- 
It is well known that Mr. Gallatin was not an adviser of the war, 
which public opinion, springing from wrongs too grievous to be 
borne, forced upon President Madison and the country. His voice 
was aye for peace. War would not only arrest his darling scheme 
of getting out of debt, but would increase its amount to an extent 
which would perhaps weigh down our national energies for a cen- 
tury. Hence he was the last of his cabinet colleagues to consent 
to war. But patriotism demanded the sacrifice, and he yielded ; 
and while it lasted no man bent his energies more devotedly to 
sustain it than he did. 

When called upon officially a few months before the war opened 
to give his views of the expedients to raise revenue necessary to 
meet the new order of things, he had the moral courage to recom- 
mend, among other things, a resort to taxation on stills and the 
distillation of spirits from domestic products — in other words, to 
the odious Excise. This drew down upon him the maledictions of 
many of his old political friends. What, said they, can you devise 
no adequate plan of revenue without including those execrable 
expedients of Hamilton and Wolcot ? His old Pittsburgh meeting 
proceedings, of August 21, 1792, were trumped upon his " budget,'' 
wherein he declared that " internal taxes upon consumption, from 
their very nature, never can be effectually carried into operation, 
without vesting the officers appointed to collect them with powers 
most dangerous to the civil rights of freemen, and must in the end 
destroy the liberties of every country in which they are introduced !" 
This was a most terrible argumentum ad hominem. When his letter 
proposing this tax was read in the House, so indignant and morti- 
iied were many of his political adherents, among them his friend 
Findley, of Westmoreland, that they refused to vote for its being 
printed. Let us not, said they, give any countenance to a letter 
containing propositions which will not probably be agreed to by 
Congress, and which can serve only unnecessarily to alarm the 
people ! Congress, however, did adopt the propositions — the peo- 
ple were not alarmed — nor were their liberties destroyed. 

In his letter he says, " there is not any more eligible object of 
taxation than ardent spirits." He proposed, however, to vary tlie 
tax from what it was in the times of the Insurrection, so as to 
divest it as much as possible of its odious inequalities, by laying 



190 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

the tax upon spirits distilled ivom. foreign materials, (molasses, &c.,) 
according to the quantity distilled ; and that distillers of fruit and 
domestic grain, &c., should pay a specified tax per annum. It was 
so enacted. 

The other plans and subjects of revenue which he proposed, and 
which Congress substantially adopted, were, ac?zWd te.r upon lands, 
&c.,^- to yield $3,000,000 — taxes upon refined sugars — licenses to 
retailers of foreign merchandise, and liquors, foreign and domes- 
tic — upon sales at auction, upon carriages, and a stamp tax. These 
and loans, aided by the tarifl' and the public lands, sustained the 
war and paid the interest of the debt. " Sweet peace restored," 
the recuperative energies of our people enabled the Government, 
within twenty years, and without the aids of either direct or internal 
taxes, to pay oft' the debt of two wars — "the money consideration 
of our independence and liberties." 

Although the National Road from Cumberland to Wheeling was 
the fruit of a compact between the United States and the State of 
Ohio, upon her admission into the Union in 1802, Mr. Gallatin was 
the originator of its plan of construction, the most magnificent and 
expensive of any turnpike ever built in this country.^^ It was 
undertaken, its route, as far as Brownsville, fixed, and partly con- 
structed, during his administration of the Treasury Department ; 
to which, in those days, such works pertained. He was opposed 
to the circuitous route adopted — having urged a more direct course, 
through Greene county and by way of l^ew Geneva. But the 
President, (Jefferson,) under the mighty influences brought to bear 
upon him, decided in favor of Brownsville and Washington — 
whether wisely or not, is a question not worth while now to consider. 
,. In March, 1807, the Senate of the United States called upon Mr. 
Gallatin, as Secretary of the Treasury, to prepare and report to 
them at their next session " a plan for the application of such 
means as are within the power of Congress to the construction of 



" Pennsylvania's share cf tbis tax was $365,479. Fayette county had to pay $4,500 ; 
Greene, $2,130; Washington, $G,920; Westmoreland, $5,440; Allegheny, $5,210; 
Philadelphia city, $79,500— county, $38,230, &c., &c. 

i' This great work was begun in 1800 — not much done on it until after the war (1815), 
and completed to Wheeling about 1822. It cost, originally, nearly $1,700,000; which 
(131 miles) is an average of nearly $13,000 to the mile. The Eastern Section, from 
Uniontowu to Cumberland, (03 miles,) cost about $14,000 per mile ; the Western Section 
not so much. The Pennsylvania Rail Road from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh was con- 
structed (single track) at an average cost of $39,000 per mile, inclusive of the great 
tunnel. 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 191 

roads and canals, with statements of works of that nature which 
may require and deserve the aid of Government, and which have 
been commenced — the progress made upon them and their means 
and prospects of being completed, with such general information 
as he shall deem material to the subject." In obedience to this 
requirement he, in March, 1808, submitted a most elaborate and 
able report, covering some seventy pages, containing a full response 
to every branch of the inquiry. The report is a detailed statement 
of all the works of that nature then completed, in progress, or pro- 
jected in the several States of the Union ; and suggests numerous 
new undertakings of a national character ; recommending a gradual 
appropriation of twenty millions to their construction. Among 
the works recommended were four roads from the Allegheny, 
Monongahela, Kanahwa, and Tennessee rivers, to the Susquehanna, 
Potomac, James and Santee : none of which were ever made but 
the second. Other works he proposed to aid by loans or subscrip- 
tions of stock. He exhibited on these points none of those consti- 
tutional scruples which have borne so heavily upon the more 
enlightened (?) judgment of modern statesmen. However its 
orthodoxy may now be regarded, the report is, even yet, a model 
of lucid conciseness and expansive statesmanship. 

It is well known that Mr. Gallatin was friendly to a re-charter of 
the United States Bank, a bill for which Mr. Madison vetoed in 
1811, but signed another in 1816. He never regarded it as that 

"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum" 

which modern sages have faund it to be ; but looked upon it as a 
safe, necessary and useful jQscal agent of Government, and regulator 
of the exchanges and the currency. He even withstood all the 
lights and denunciations which more recent discussions poured 
upon the subject; and in the calm retirement of his matured life 
gave his views to the world in an extended treatise, entitled " The 
Currency, &c." It was read only as the opinions of a statesman 
of the old regime^ unillumined by the light of latter day luminaries, 
in whose effulgence the people have rejoiced, and the Government 
grown strong. 

Mr. Gallatin was, however, never the advocate of a Protective 
Tarifl'. He had no objection to " incidental" protection ; but his 
theories and recommendations never went beyond revenue. This 
accorded with the uniform tenor of his financial schemes — the 
utmost attainable increase of income, so as thereby the more 
speedily to extinguish the public debt. His free trade proclivities 



192 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

were fixed, yet he did not obtrude them in his State papers. Ouce, 
when a private citizen of New York, he did unfold them to Con- 
gress in the form of a memorial, from the Philadelphia " Free 
Trade Convention," of which he was a prominent member. It 
was tauntingly flouted by Southern nuUifiers in the faces of the 
friends of protection, which provoked Mr. Clay, their great cham- 
pion, to visit upon its author his most indignant denunciation." 

We pass now from the field of Mr. Gallatin's fiscal displays to 
another. It is not for us to attempt an estimate of his financial 
character. His long continuance in that department, and the emi- 
nent suocess which crowned all his efforts, warrant the laudations 
which were showered upon him while in office, and which followed 
him into his latest retirement. He won his honors well and wore 
them long. 

In conimon with other ofiicers of the ship of state, Mr. Gallatin 
hailed with delight the first gleamings of the star of peace through 
the murky clouds of war. And when, in the spring of 1813, the 
Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, offered his friendly mediation to 
the two belligerent nations, the President promptly selected Mr. 
Gallatin as one of the negotiators ; this, without allowing him to 
let go his hold upon the helm of the Treasury. John Quincy 
Adams being then our resident minister at St. Petersburg, the 
President, in April, 1813, in the recess of the Senate, appointed 
Mr. Gallatin and James A. Bayard, of Delaware, to join him there 
as joint plenipotentiaries to sign a treaty of peace with Great 
Britain, under the proflered mediation ; and also to negotiate and 
sign a commercial treaty with Russia. When the Senate convened, 
in June, 1813, the President sent in his nomination of the three 
Envoys. , Thereupon quite a dignified quarrel sprung up between 



" " But, Sir, the gentleman to whom I am about to allude, although long a resident 
of this country, has no feelings, no attachments, no sympathies, no principles in com- 
mon with our people. Nearly fifty years ago, Pennsylvania took him to her bosom, 
and warmed and cherished, and honored him. And how does he manifest his gratitude ? 
By aiming a vital blow at a system endeared to her by a thorough conviction that it is 
indispensable to her prosperity. He has filled, at home and abroad, some of the highest 
offices under this Government, during thirty years, and he is still at heart an alien. 
The authority of his name has been invoked ; and the labors of his pen, in the form of 
a Memorial to Congress, have been engaged to overthrow the American system, and to 
substitute the foreign. Go home to your native Europe, and there inculcate upon her 
Sovereigns your Utopian doctrines of free trade ; and when you have prevailed upon 
them to unseal their ports, and freely admit the produce of Pennsylvania and other 
States, come back, and we shall be prepared to become converts, and adopt your faith." 
nennj Clay^s Speech in the U. S. Senate, February 2, 1832. 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 193 

the President and the Senate, they deciding to interrogate him 
rather closely as to why he sent Mr. Gallatin, and what became of 
the Treasury in the mean time ; and he refusing to be interrogated. 
The result was, after much deliberation, that the Senate refused, 
by a vote'of seventeen to eighteen, to advise and consent to Mr. Gal- 
latin's appointment, on the ground of incompatibility of the two 
offices of Secretary and Minister. Mr. Adams was confirmed by 
a vote of thirty to four, Mr. Bayard by twenty-seven to six. Mr. 
Gallatin had gone on the mission, and it does not appear that the 
President recalled him. 

England, however, rejected the Russian mediation, but offered 
to treat for peace, untrammeled, at Gottenburg, in Sweden. 
Thereupon, on the 9th February, 1814, the President appointed 
Mr. Gallatin one of the Commissioners, the Senate thereto con- 
senting ; George W. Campbell, of Tennessee, having been at the 
same time nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury and confirmed. 
The seat of the negotiations was subsequently removed to Ghent, 
in Belgium, where Messrs. Adams, Bayard and Gallatin were after- 
wards joined by Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell, who, as joint 
Plenipotentiaries, negotiated the terms of peace with Lord Gam- 
bier, Sir Henry Goulbourn and William Adams, and on the 24th 
December, 1814, signed the treaty which terminated the war as 
soon as known. The news of it reached iTew York on the 11th 
February, amid the rejoicings over the victory at New Orleans. 
Thus was peace born in the arms of victory. 

Mr. Gallatin had now entered upon a long career of diplomatic 
service. In 1815, he, with Messrs. Clay and Adams, negotiated 
and signed at London a commercial treaty with Great Britain. 
Thereupon he returned home for a short period, in company with 
Mr. Clay. From 1816 to 1823, he was our Minister resident at 
the court of France. This was a most interesting period in the 
history of that long convulsed and ever changeful nation, and of 
all Europe. Waterloo had sealed up her fate for fifteen years, and 
her capital, long the abode of terror, had now become again the 
seat of gaiety, and the centre of attraction to civilized Europe. 
The long banished elite of England had returned, or rushed thither 
anew, to revel in its cheap luxuries of sense and intellect. In such 
a conjuncture of teeming events it behooved our Republic to be 
well represented. Mr. Gallatin was wisely assigned to a court 
where now for a while the greatest diplomats of Europe resided. 
We had also claims upon that nation of grave and perplexing 
importance for outrages upon our commerce committed by virtue 
13 



194 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

of the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon ; and although it 
was too soon for a Bourbon to respond fully for those depredations, 
yet Mr. Gallatin was enabled to pave the way for their ultimate 
recognition and payment. During his residence at Paris he was 
twice deputed by our Government upon special missions, to the 
^Netherlands in 1817, and to England in 1818. He returned to the 
United States with his family early in 1824, and for a while again 
took up his abode at his old home in Fayette, in a new and splendid 
mansion which he had procured to be erected preparatory to his 
return. 

In 1824, there were four prominent candidates for the Presidency 
of the United States, Jackson, Adams, Clay and Crawford. The 
machinery of National Conventions had not yet been devised, by 
which to combine sectional influences and crush out the pretensions 
of unavailable aspirants. Mr. Gallatin's long absence had not 
estranged him from his old political friends ; and, upon his return, 
many of them, especially in Virginia and Pennsylvania, run up 
his name as a candidate for the Vice Presidency, in connection with 
William H. Crawford, of Georgia, for President. For a long time 
Mr. Gallatin regarded the movement as only complimentary, or 
• experimental, and took no public notice of it. Gradually it became 
more and more earnest and imposing ; and the cry of constitutional 
ineligibility was raised against him, because not " a natural born 
citizen of the United States." Those who raised this clamor were 
actuated less by a wish that " none but Americans should rule 
America," than by motives of envy or selfishness. Certain it is 
that the Constitution gave no ground for the objection ; for, having 
been a citizen at its adoption, in 1789, he was as eligible as if " to 
the manner born," that carefully prepared instrument presenting 
the singular incongruity, in the early years of its operation, of per- 
mitting a man to become President or Vice President who could 
not be a Senator !^^ Mr. Gallatin had the good sense to silence the 
distracting agitation by publicly withdrawing from the canvass. 

The dignitied retirement of Mr. Gallatin, at the home of his 
younger days, was honored, in May, 1825, by a visit from his "long 
tried, his bosom friend," La Fayette. On the 26th, the " nation's 
guest" was most honorably received at Uniontown by the people 



1^ We well recollect the witliug (or witless) newspaper eif usions of the day upon this 
question — illustrated by a proposition to run Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland, for Vice 
President, along with Joseph Buonaparte, of Spain, then residing in New Jersey, for 
President. 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 195 

of the county whicli wears his ilhistrious name. On this great 
occasion, Mr. Gallatin, with signal appropriateness, made the recep- 
tion address. On the Thursdaj following, (May 28th,) the General 
and suite, well accompanied, were driven to Mr. Gallatin's resi- 
dence, where a most sumptuous and abundant entertainment was 
provided, not only for the special guests, but for the thronging 
multitude who rushed thither to greet them. It was truly a gala 
day at the stately mansion and verdant lawns and groves of 
" Friendship Hill." Who that was there can ever forget the " feast 
of reason" — and other good things, and the "flow of soul" — and 
champagne ? The like of which Old Springhill had never seen — 
may never see again. 

But Mr. Gallatin was not allowed long to enjoy his retirement — 
if indeed it was an enjoyment. For there appears to be a witchery 
in the excitements of public life which few who have largely 
shared them are ever willing to resign until driven to it by having 
attained the topmost round of ambition's ladder, or by the decrepi- 
tude of age. He was still in the vigor of a green old age, and in 
the maturity of experienced statesmanship. There were questions 
of serious import yet to be settled with Great Britain, springing 
out of all the precedent treaties with that power, from 1783 to 
1818 — the North-east and !N"orth-west boundaries, the fisheries, the 
navigation of the Mississippi, captured slaves, &c., with all of which 
Mr, Gallatin was well acquainted — better, perhaps, than any other 
statesman then at command. To consummate their adjustment, 
as far as attainable, Mr. Adams, in 1826, called him from his Spring- 
hill home, and sent him as Minister Plenipotentiary to London. 
His mission was eminently successful as to all those 'subjects ; 
although, as to some of them, subsequent events showed that his 
negotiations still left room for further disputes. He returned to 
the United States in December, 1827, but never again resumed his 
residence in Fayette county. For a short period he took up his 
abode in Baltimore, where, we believe, two of Mrs. Gallatin's sis- 
ters, Mrs. Few and Mrs. Montgomery, then resided. He soon 
afterwards removed to the city of New York, and they with him ; 
where he spent the long remnant of his life, not, however, in stately 
ease and idleness, as we shall presently see. 

Although the sun of Mr. Gallatin's official career had now set, 
he continued to shed a long and brilliant twilight. In 1828-29, 
at the instance of President Adams, he prepared the celebrated 
argument on behalf of the United States, to be laid before the 
King of Holland, the chosen umpire between us and Great Britain 



196 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

ou the troublesome question of the North-east boundary. This 
umpirage having proved unavailing, the subject continued to occupy 
the active mind of Mr. Gallatin during subsequent years. In 1840 
he published an elaborate dissertation upon it, in which he treated 
it historically, geographically, argumentatively and diplomatically ; 
in all of which he exhibited an acuteness and fullness of knowledge 
never expended upon a similar question before or since. When 
this protracted and portentous controversy came to be finally 
adjusted between Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, in 1842, these 
labors of Mr. Gallatin — so full, so clear, so conclusive, contributed 
greatly to the satisfactory arrangement embodied in the treaty of 
Washington. 

Soon after Mr. Gallatin's settlement in New York, he became 
the President of the National (not United States) Bank, one of the 
largest banking institutions of the commercial metropolis. Indeed, 
we believe the charter was procured with the special view of putting 
him at its head, and thereby adding the weight and wisdom of his 
financial character to the monetary power of that " mart of nations." 
And perhaps no one event added more to its growing greatness 
than the speedy resumption, in May, 1838, of specie payments by 
the banks of New York, after the general suspension of 1837. To 
this masterly achievement of policy and right, Mr. Gallatin gave 
his most earnest advocacy. 

Mr. Gallatin continued, almost to the close of bis life, to keep 
a watchful eye upon public affairs. When the Mexican war was 
sprung upon the nation, in 1846, his attention was at once arrested 
by the grounds upon which it was begun, and the pretensions and 
purposes of its continuance. It involved questions worthy of his 
mind and pen ; and being adverse to the continuance, if not to the 
commencement of the war, he hesitated not to make an open 
avowal of his views in an extended discussion of the whole subject 
entitled "Peace with Mexico," published in 1847. His opinions, 
as to the grounds of the war, corresponded with those of Mr. Ben- 
ton, and as to its further prosecution, with those of Mr. Calhoun. 

The closing years of Mr. Gallatin's life were spent chiefly in 
scientific and literary labors, partaking of an antiquarian and his- 
torical character. He became Presiaent of the New York Histo- 
rical Society, and of another association denominated Ethnological, 
or pertaining to the original races or divisions of mankind ; taking 
great interest in the objects of both. Among his contributions to 
the former, after the North-east boundary question had, in 1842, 
become a subject of history, was his Essay on Mr. Jay's map, which 



CH. VII.] ALBERT GALLATIN. 197 

related to part of his celebrated treaty of 1794. Long prior to 
this, iu 1836, lie had published a "Synopsis of the Indian tribes in 
the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British 
and Russian possessions," — a work of wonderful labor and research. 
And he closed his life amid labors upon a similar work relating to 
the Indians of Mexico. 

Mental labor and writing had become so much a habit of his 
life as to be an aliment of his existence. His is a rare case of a 
man who had spent his life in sedentary labors, and amid the ex- 
citements of politics and diplomacy, being able to preserve his 
mental and bodily health beyond four-score years. In writing to 
his friend. Judge Brooke, of Virginia, on the 4th of March, 1848, 
he says : — " Although you were pleased in your favor of December 
last, to admire the preservation of my faculties, these are in truth 
sadly impaired. I cannot work more than four hours a day, and I 
write with great difficulty. Entirely absorbed in a subject which 
engrossed all my thoughts and feelings," &c. — alluding to his 
ethnological labors. He adds: — "But though my memory fails me 
for recent transactions, it is unimpaired in reference to my early 
days. * * * I a^n now in my eighty-eighth year, growing weaker 
every month, with only the infirmities of mge. For all chronical dis- 
eases 1 have no faith in physicians, consult none, and take no physic 
whatever." 

But his "throwing physic to the dogs" does not quite solve the 
phenomena. Were we allowed to hazard an additional solution, 
it would be the unimpassioned, imperturbable structure of his 
mind, which rescued his most earnest pursuits and labored efforts 
from that cerebral excitement which generally superadds mental 
debility to physical prostration. He was eminently a man of 
thought and calculation, and not of feeling or impulse. The friends 
he had, he grappled with hooks of steel ; but they were hooks of 
cold, intellectual steel. He was always calm and self possessed, 
shut up to his own rich resources, keeping out the fear of failure 
and a wish for help, by his own confident ability to succeed. Just 
as the student who is conscious of having his proposition in geom- 
etry at his finger's ends, will, with an examination prize at stake, 
go through the exercises of the blackboard, without becoming 
either flushed or pale ; and will sit down with as equable a pulse 
as if in a morning ride. Another proof of his serene equanimity, 
was his unvarying vivacity and extraordinary conversational 
powers. This may seem somewhat paradoxical ; but if scrutinized, 
it will be found accordant to all the principles of sound intellectual 



1^ THE MONONaAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VII. 

pathology. Those endowments indicate a smooth, healthful flow 
of mental action, exempt from the undercurrent of passional ele- 
vation or depression. The attractiveness of their display, gave to 
Mr. G. much of his unbroken success : — the mental habitude from 
which they sprung, added years of health to his prolonged useful- 
ness. He was, moreover, always at ease in his pecuniary affairs, 
and his domestic relations were uncommonly harmonious. Cor- 
roding care had no closet in either his heart or his household. 

To his other studies Mr. Gallatin had added that of theological 
science. In youth he had imbibed Unitarian views of the charac- 
ter of Christ ; but he avowed, in maturer years, his conviction of 
the errors of that belief. He was an admirer of the republican 
simplicity of the Presbyterian Church polity, but not of some of 
its doctrines. He was, he said, an Arminian Presbyterian. We 
believe he never became a visible member of any branch of the 
church militant; but, in the later years of his life, he worshiped 
at the Presbyterian church in New York, of which the Rev. 
Erskine Mason, D. D. (new school) is pastor. 

Mr. Gallatin left two sons, James and Albert, and one daughter, 
Frances, wife of B. K. Stevens, Esq., to inherit his great fame 
and ample estates. Thej?- reside, in elegant ease, in the city of 
New York and vicinity, James having succeeded his father in the 
presidency of the National Bank. These are the children of his 
second wife — his first having been childless. She, however, adopted 
the fatherless child of a poor woman, — a boy, whom in regard for 
her memory after her death, Mr. Gallatin educated, for which he, in 
return, assumed his benefactor's name. In early life he sought 
his fortunes in the West, but found, we believe, an untimely 
grave. 

We will attempt no resume of the character and achievements 
of the subject of this extended memoir. If there be such a thing 
as a " self made man," rising from untoward beginnings, and 
climbing unaided to the loftiest seats of fame and usefulness, Mr. 
Gallatin was one, of the highest order. Perhaps Longfellow 
chants truly in his Psalm of Life — 

*' Lives of great men all remind us, 
We can make our lives sublime." 

Mr. Gallatin died at the residence of his son-in-law, in Astoria^ 
Long Island, on Sunday, August 12th, 1849, in the eighty-ninth 
year of his age. 



[APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.] 



LIST OF SETTLERS m FAYETTE, 

AND IK CONTIGUOUS PARTS OF 

aHEENE, WASHINGTON AND WESTMORELAND COUNTIES, 

INI 779: 
COPIED FROM THE OFFICIAL ASSESSMENT ROLLS OF BEDFORD COUNTY FOR 1V73. 



In 1772, and until the erection of Westmoreland in 1773, Bedford county embraced 
all of South-western Pennsylvania. 

All of what is now Fayette county, east of a straight line from the mouth of Redstone 
to the mouth of Jacob's creek, composed two townships, Springhill and Tyrone, between 
which the division line was Redstone oreek, from its mouth to where it was crossed by 
Burd's Road, thence Burd's Road to Gist's, thence Braddock's Road to the Great Cross- 
ings. That part of Fayette which is west (or north-west) of the line from the mouth 
of Redstone to the mouth of Jacob's creek, was included in Rostraver township ; which 
then embraced all of the " Forks of Yough" to the junction. 

All of Greene and of Washington counties, which were then supposed to be within 
the limits of Pennsylvania, and lying west of Fayette, seem to have been included in 
Springhill. 

We give the entire lists for Springhill, Tyrone and Rostraver. ^ 

SPRINGHILL TOWNSHIP. 
John Allen, John Artman, Samuel Adams, 

William Allen, Ichabod Ashcraft, Robert Adams, 

John Armstrong, John Ally, 

Edward Askins, John Allison, George Boydston, 



1 As a curiosity, and to contrast the eastern part of Allegheny county, including Pittsburgh, &c., with 
Fayette county, in 1772, and with herself and city now, we give the names then on the roll for Pitt township, 
in all 79, viz : 

John Barr, Jacob Bausman, Col. Bird, Richard Butler, Wm. Butler; John Covet, Jas. Cavet, Wm. Cun- 
ningham, Wm. Christy, Geo. Croghan, John Campbell ; Wm. Elliott, Joseph Erwin; Mary Ferree; Thomas 
Gibson, Elizabeth Gibson; Samuel Heath; Thomas Lyon, Wm. Lyon; Jas. Myers, Eleazer Myers, Wm. 
Martin, Mnaa.^ Mackay,Robt. M'Kinney, Jno. M'Callister, John M'Daniel, Thos. M'Camish, Thos. M'Bride. 
Charles M'Ginness, Lachlan M'Lean; John Ormsby; Wm. Powell, Jonathan Plummer; James Royal, Jas. 
Reed, Wm. Ramage, Peter Roletter, Andrew Robeson ; John Sampson, Robert Semple, Samuel Sample, Geo. 
Sly, Devereaux Smith, Joseph Spear, John Small ; Wm. Teagarden, Wm. Thompson, Benjamin Tate ; Kinard 
Undus ; Conrad Winebiddle, Conrad Windmiller, Philip Whitesell. /remaps.— Andrew Boggs, Charles Bruce ; 
John Crawford, John Craford, Joseph Closing, David Critslow; Jacob Divilbiss; Wm. Edwards; Geo. Kerr, 
Wm. Kerr; Wm. Owens; Geo. Phelps, Ab'm. Powers ; Jas. Rice, Henry Rites, Jacob Ribold; Abr'm. Slover, 
Charles Smith; Christian Tubb, John Thompson. Single i^'reemen.— Richard Butler, Wm. Butler; Geo. 
Croghan, Moses Coe ; Ephr'm. Hunter; Geo. Kerr ; Wm. Martin; Hugh O'Hara; Alex'r. Ross; John Samp 
son, Alex'r. Steel; John Thousman ; Jacob Windmiller. 



200 



THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. 



[CH. VII. APP. 



Peter Backus, 

Bazil Brown, 

Jas. Browa, (Dunlap's cr'k.) 

Thomas Brown, (Ten Mile 

creek, ) 
Joseph Brown, 
Samuel Brown, 
Adam Brown, 
Maunus Brown, 
Thomas Brown, 
John Brown, 
Walter Brisco, 
Peter Baker, 
Nicholas Baker, 
James Burdin, 
John Burris, 
Rooert Brownfield, 
Edward Brownfield, 
Epsom Brownfield, 
Charles Brownfield, 
Jeremiah Beek, 
Charles Burkham, 
Henry Beeson, 
Jacob Beeson, 
Alexander Buchanan, 
James Black, 
John Barkley, 
Nicholas Bauk, 
Thomas Banfield, 
Thomas Batton, 
William Brashears, 
Joseph Barker, 
Lewis Brimet, 
James Branton, 
Henry Brenton, 
John Braddock, 

Michael Carn, 
George Craft, 
William Case, 
Adam Cumbert, 
John Craig, 
Joseph Caldwell, 
James Crooks, 
William Campbell, 
John Carr, 
John Carr, Jr. 
Moses Carr, 
William Cochran, 
George Conn, 
Nicholas Crowshoe, 
Anthony Coshaw, 



Wm. Crawford, Capt. 
Wm. Crawford, Quaker, 
Wm. Crawford, 
Josias Crawford, 
Oliver Crawford, 
Richard Chinner, 
Peter Cleam, 
Jacob Cleara, 
John Casteel, 
George Church, 
Michael Cox, 
Joseph Cox, 
Michael Catt, 
Abraham Cills, 
Anthony Cills, 
William Conwell, 
Jehu Conwell, 
Michael Cresap, 
William Colvin, 
George Colvin, 

Peter Drago, 
John Drago, 
Samuel Douglass, 
Jeremiah Downs, 
Augustus Dillener, 
Edward Death, 
John Death, 
Owen David, 
Jesse Dument, 
William Dowuard, 
Jacob Downard, 
Henry Debolt, 
George Debolt, 
Henry Dever, 
Lewis Davison, 
Andrew Davison, 
William Dawson, 
Jacob Dicks, 
Lewis Deem, 

Henry Enoch, 
John Evans, 
Richard Evans, 
Hugh Evans, 
Edward Elliott, 

Michael Franks, 
Jacob Franks, 
James Fleeharty, 
John Fisher, 
James Frame, 



Nathan Friggs, 
Henry Friggs, 
Hugh Ferry, 
James Flannegan, 
David Flowers, 
Thomas Flowers, 

Thomas Gaddis, 
Samuel Glasby, 
William Garrat, 
John Garrard, 
John Garrard, Jr. 
William Goodwin, 
Joseph Goodwin, 
Thomas Gooden, 
John Glasgo, 
Fred'k. Garrison, 
Leonard Garrison, 
Jacob Grow, 
Zachariah Gobean, 
John Griffith, 
Hugh Gilmore, 
Robert Gilmore, 
Thomas Gregg, 
Charles Gause, 
Daniel Qoble, 
Nicholas Gilbert, 
Andrew Gudgel, 

Henry Hart, 
David Hatfield, Jr. 
John Hendricks, 
Henry Hall, 
John Hall, 
Adam Henthorn, 
James Henthorn, 
Jas. Henthorn, (the less,) 
John Henthorn, 
Charles Hickman, 
Aaron Hackney, 
Martin Hardin, 
Benjamin Hardin, 
William Hardin, 
John Hardin, Jr. 
John Harman, 
Geo. Huckleberry, 
John Huffman, 
John Harrison, 
David Hawkins, 
James Herod, 
William Herod, 
Levi Herod, 



CH. VII. APP.] 



SPRINGHILL. 



201 



Henson Hobbs, 

Samiiel Howard, 

William House, 

Philemon Hughes, 

Thos. Hughes, (Muddy creek) 

Thomas Hughes, 

Owen Hughes, 

John Huston, 

Hugh Jackson, 
Da'vid Jennins, 
Aaron Jenkins, 
Jonathan Jones, 
John Jones, 

Thomas Lane, 
Absalom Little, 
Samuel Lucas, 
Thomas Lucas, 
Richard Lucas, 
Hugh Laughlin, 
David Long, 
John Long, 
John Long, Jr. 
Jacob Link, 

Aaron Moore, 

John Moore, 

Jno. Moore, (over the river,) 

Simon Moore, 

Hans Moore, 

David Morgan, 

Charles Morgan, 

William Masters, 

John Masterson, 

Henry Myers, 

George Myers, 

Ulrick Myers, 

Martin Mason, 

John Mason, 

Alexander Miller, 

John Messmore, 

John Mene, 

Daniel Moredock, 

James Moredock, 

Adam Mannon, 

John Mannon, 

John Marr, 

William M' Do well, 

John M'Farland, 

Francis M'Ginness, 

Nathaniel M'Carty, 



Samuel M'Cray, 
James M'Coy, 
Hugh M'Cleary, 

Tunis Newkirk, 
Barnet Newkirk, 
Peter Newkirk, 
James Neal, 
George Newell, 
James Notts, 
James Notts, Jr. 
Charles Nelson, 
Adam Newlon, 
Bernard O'Neal, 

Jacob Poundstone, 
Frederick Parker, 
Philip Pearce, 
Theophilus Phillips, 
Thomas Phillips, 
Adam Penter, 
Richard Parr, 
Henry Peters, 
John Peters, 
Christian Pitser, 
Ahimon Pollock, 
John Pollock, 
Samuel Paine, 
John Wm. Provance, 

leronemus Rimley, 
Casper Rather, 
Telah Rood, 
Jesse Rood, 
Daniel Robbins, 
John Robbins, 
Roger Roberts, 
Jacob Riffle, 
Ralph Riffle, 
William Rail, 
David Rogers, 
Thomas Roch, 
Edward Roland, 
William Rees, 
Jonathan Rees, 
Jacob Rich, 

Thomas Scott, 

Edward Scott, 

Andrew Scott, 

James Scott, 

John Smith, (Dunlap's creek) 



John Smith, 
Robert Smith, 
James Smith, 
Philip Smith, 
William Smith, 
Conrad Seix, ^ 
Isaac Sutton, 
Isaac Sutton, Jr. 
Jacob Sutton, 
Lewis Saltser, 
Samuel Stilwell, 
William Spangler, 
John Swearingen, 
William Shepperd, 
John Swan, 
John Swan, Jr. 
Thomas Swan, 
Robert Sayre, 
Stephen Styles, 
Samuel Sampson, 
Joseph Starkey, 
David Shelby, 
Elias Stone, 

Obadiah Truax, 
John Thompson, 
Michael Tuck, 
Abraham Teagarden, 
George Teagarden, 
Edward Taylor, 
Michael Thomas, 



Henry Vanmeter, 
Abraham Vanmeter, 
Jacob Vanmeter, 
John Vantrees, 
John Varvill, 

David White, 

James White, 
George Williams, 
David Walters, 
Ephraim Walters, 
David Wright, 
George Wilson, Esq. 
James Wilson, 
John Waits, 
John Watson, 
George Watson, 

Joseph Yauger, 
Telah Yourk.— 305. 



%Y^ 



202 



THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. 



[CH. VII. APP. 



Richard Ashcraft, 
Ephraim Ashcraft, 
Samuel Adams, 

John Bachus, 
William Burt, 
John Beeson, 
Samuel Bridgewater, 
Coleman Brown, 
William Brown, 
Bazil Brown, 
Benjamin Brashears, 
Richard Brownfield, 
Benjamin Brooks, 
Alexander Bryan, 
William Bells, 

Gabriel Cox, 
Israel Cox, 
Samuel Colson, 
Joseph Coon, 
Robert Cavines, 
John Cross, 
Edward Carn, 
Christian Coifman, 
John Curley, 
Nathaniel Case, 
John Crossley, 
Christopher Capley, 
George Catt, 
John Chadwick, 
Jonathan Chambers, 
John Cline, i^ 

Benajah Dunn, 



John Brown, 
Joseph Batton, 
Isher Budd, 
David Blackston, 

Hugh Crawford, 
John Crawford, 
Francis Chain, 
William Cheny, 
Daniel Christy, 
James Chamberlain, 
James Carmichael, 
James Campbell, 



Inmate b — [^Boarders not heads of families.'] 

Zephaniah Dunn, 
Timothy Downing, 
Jeremiah Davis, 
James Davis, 



Thomas Edwards, 
Bernard Eckerly, 

James Fugate, 

John Guthrey, 
William Groom, 

Capt. John Hardin, 
William Henthorn, 
William Hogland, 
Edward Hatfield, 
John Hawkins, 
Samuel Herod, 
John Hargess, 
Thomas Hargess, 

Joseph Jackson, 
Jacob Jacobs, 

John Kinneson, 
Thomas Kendle, 

William Lee, 
Andrew Link, y^ 

Elijah Mickle, 
William Murphy, 
John Morgan, 
Morgan Morgan, 

Single Freemen. 
John Catch, 

John Dicker, 
John Douglass, 
Edward Dublin, 

Elias Eaton, 
Alexander Ellener, 
Samuel Eckerly, 

Thomas Foster, 
Jacob Funk, 
Martin Funk, 



Samuel Merrifield, 
John Main, Jr. 
William Martin, 
John Morris, 
Jacob Morris, 
George M'Coy, 
John M'Fall, 
Alexander M'Donald, 
William M'Claman, 

John Pettyjohn, 
Baltzer Peters, 
Richard Powell, 
Thomas Pyburn, 
John Phillips, 
Thomas Provance, 

Thomas Rail, 
Noah Rood, 

William Spencer, 
Alexander Smith, 
John Smith, 
Francis Stannater, 

John Taylor, 
William Thompson, 

Jonah Webb, 
John Williamson, 
Alexander White, 
Benjamin Wells, 
Michael Whitelock, 

Jeremiah Yourk, 
Ezekiel Yourk.— 89 



Joseph Gwin, 
Bartlett Griffith, 

John Holton, 
Abraham Holt, 
John Holt, 
Joshua Hudson, 
John Hupp, 

Cornelius Johnson, 

Josiah Little, 



CH. VII. APP.] 



TYRONE. 



20.3 



William Marshall, 
James Morgan, 
Hugh Murphey, 
George Morris, 
Joseph Morris, 
David M' Donald, 
Abraham M'Farland, 
John M'Gilty, 

John Notts, 
Philip Nicholas, 



Jonathan Arnold, 
Andrew Arnold, 
David Allen, 

Andrew Byers, 
Christopher Beeler, 
Henry Beeson, 
John Boggs, 
Thomas Brownfield, 

Bernard Cunningham, 
Daniel Cannon, 
Edward Conn, 
George Clark, 
George Clark, Jr. 
John Cherry, 
James Cravin, 
John Clem, 
John Cornwall, 
John Castleman, 
William Crawford, Esq. 
Valentine Crawford, 
William Collins, 

George Dawson, 
Edward Doyle, 
Joshua Dickenson, 
John Dickenson, 
Thomas Davis, 

Robert Erwin, 

Thomas Freeman, 

James Gamble, 



Reding Blunt, 
Zechariah Connell, 
Peter Casiner, 



James Peters, 
Isaac Pritchard, 
Jonathan Paddox, 
Ebenezer Paddox, 

Noble Rail, 
Nathan Rinehart, 
Samuel Robb, 
James Robertson, 
Philip Rogers, 
Total, 452. 

TYRONE TOWNSHIP. 

Reason Gale, 
Thomas Gist, Esq. 

Charles Harrison, 
William Harrison, 
Ezekiel Hickman, 
Henry Hartley, 
James Harper, 
Joseph Huston, 
William Hanshaw, 

John Keith, 

Andrew Linn, 
David Lindsay, 
John Laughlin, 
Samuel Lyon, 

Alexander Moreland, 
Augustine Moore, 
Edmund Martin, 
Michael Martin, 
Hugh Masterson, 
Isaac Meason, 
Philip Meason, 
Providence Mounts, 
WiUiam Massey, 
William Miller, 
Robert M'Glaughlin, 
William M'Kee, 

Robert O'GuUion, 

Adam Payne, 
Elisha Pearce, 

Inmates. 

Smith Corbit, 
Francis Lovejoy, 
Agney Maloney, 



John Shively, 
Christopher Swoop, 
Ralph Smith, 
John Sultzer, 

William Teagarden, 
John Taylor, 

John Verville, Jr. 
John Williams. — 58. 



Isaac Pearce, 
George Paull, 

Andrew Robertson, 
Edmund Rice, 
Robert Ross, 
Samuel Rankin, 
William Rankin, 

Dennis Springer, • 
Josiah Springer, 
George Smith,' 
Moses Smith, 
Isaac Sparks, 
William Sparks, 
John Stephenson, 
Richard Stephenson, 
John Stewart, 
Philip Shute, 

Philip Tanner, 
James Torrance, 
Thomas Tilton, 

John Vance, 

Conrad Walker, 
Henry White, 
William White, 
Joseph Wells, 
John Waller, 
Richard Waller, 
Lund Washington, 

George Young. — 89. 



Joseph Reily, 
Edward Stewart. — 8, 



204 



THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. 



[CH. VII. APP. 



Robert Beall, 
James Berwick, 
George Brown, 

William Castleman, 

John Felty, 



Single Freemen. 



Elijah Lucas, 



Patrick Masterson, 
Alexander M' Clean, 



Francis Main, 
James Mock, 
Thomas Moore, 
Total, 110 



Daniel Stephens, 
William Shepherd.— 13. 



Uncultivated Lands. 
George Washington, (*) 1500 acres. Nicholas Dawson, 300 acres. 

John A. Washington, 600 " Snively's Administrators, 300 " 



Samuel Washington, 


600 " Halvert Adams, 300 " 


Lund Washington, 


300 " Joseph Hunter, 900 " 


Thomas Gist, Esq. 


600 " 
ROSTRAVER TOWNSHIP 




Benjamin Applegate, 


Christopher Houseman, 


Robert M'Connell, 


Daniel Applegate, 


Thomas Hind, 




William Applegate, 


Peter Hildebrand, 


Ralph Nisley, 


Thomas Applegate, 


Joseph Hill, 






Llewellen Howell, 


Dorsey Pentecost, 


Alexander Bowling, 




Benjamin Pelton, 


Andrew Baker, 


Deverich Johnson, 


David Price, 


Samuel Burns, 


James Johnson, 


John Perry, 


James Burns, 


Jacob Johnson, 


Samuel Perry, 


Isham Barnett, 


Joseph Jones, 


Joseph Pearce, 


Morris Brady, 




John Pearce, 


Samuel Biggon, 


John Kiles, 


James Peers, 


Samuel Beckett, 


John Kilton, 


Andrew Pearce, 


Edward Cook, 


Andrew Linn, 


Edward Smith, 




William Linn, 


Samuel Sinclair, 


Andrew Dye, 


Nathan Linn, 


Henry Speer, 


James Devoir, 


Frederick Lamb, 


John Shannon, 


John Dogtauch, 




Michael Springer, 


William Dunn, 


John Miller, 


Richard Sparks, 




Oliver Miller, 


William Sultzman, 


Peter Elrod, 


Abraham Miller, 


Van Swearingen, 


Peter Easman, 


Alexander Miller, 






Alexander Morehead, 


William Turner, 


Paul Froman, 


Alexander Mitchell, 


Philip Tanner, 


Rev. Jas. Finley, 


John Mitchell, 






Jesse Martin, 


Joseph Vanmeter, 


Samuel Glass, 


Morgan Morgan, 


Jacob Vanmeter, 


Samuel Grissey, 


Robert Mays, 


John Vanmeter, 


John Greer, 


Daniel M'Gogan, 


Peter Vandola, 


James Gragh, 


James M'Kinley, 





* See Chap. XIV. — "Washington in Fayette." 



CH. VII. APP.] 



ROSTKAVER. 



205 



Adam Wickenhimen, 
David Williams, 
George Weddel, 
John Weddel, 



James Wall, 
Samuel Wilson, 
James Wilson, 
Isaac Wilson, 



John Wiseman, 
Thomas Wells, 

James Young.— 



Benjamin Allen, 
Nathaniel Crown, 
Benajah Burkham, 
John Blea'Sor, 

Samuel Clem, 
Thomas Cummins, 

Benajah Dumont, 



William Boling, 
Jesse Dumont, 
John Finn, 
Isaac Greer. 
Moses HoUiday, 



Inmates. 

Samuel Davis, 
Thomas Dobin, 
Hugh Dunn, 

Peter Hanks, 
Joseph Hill, 

Joseph Lemon, 



Single Freemen. 

Peter Johnson, 
Ignatius Jones, 
Thomas Miller, 
Jacob M'Meen, 
Baltser Shilling, 

Total 121. 



William Moore, 
John M'Clellan, 
Felty M'Cormick, 

Martin Owens, 

Abraham Ritchey, 

Peter Skinner.- 19. 



Levi Stephens, 
Cornelius Thompson, 
Robert Turner. — 14. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MASON AND DIXON'S LINE, 

Its peculiarities — 30° 30^ — Slavery — Colonial Titles— New England and Virginia at 40° 
— The Dutch Dynasty — Delaware born at Swaanendael — Maryland granted — The 
Swedes — The Dutch conquer them — The Duke of York conquers the Dutch — His 
Domains- — William Penn — Pennsylvania granted — Where was 40°— Disputes with Lord 
Baltimore begin — Penn buys Delaware— Boundary Negotiations — The King halves the 
Peninsula — Delaware stands alone — Denth and Character of Penn— New Lords — Con- 
cordat of 1723 — Agreement of 1732 — Boundaries agreed upon- — Strife renewed — Par- 
ties go into Chancery — Quibbling—- Border Feuds — Cresap — Temporary Line — Lord 
Harwicke's Decrees — Final Agreement of July 4, 1760— Gains and Losses of the 
Parties — Retributive Justice — Pennsylvania ahead— Connecticut controversy — The 
Lines run — Mason and Dixon — Lines around Delaware — Tlie Great Due-West Line — 
Slow progress— Indians about — Halt at the War-path — The Corner Cairn — How the 
Line was marked — The Visto — Instruments used — Meas iremeuts — New Troubles — All 
quiet — Distances and Localities — Re-tracings in 1849 — Errors and Certainties — Muta- 
tions of Boundary aiid Empire-— Is the History of the Line ended ? Not yet. 

The southern boundary of Pennsylvania exhibits several striking 
peculiarities. Its eastern end consists of a considerable arc of a 
circle, which, springing from the river Delaware, connects itself 
with the latitudinal part of the line by a deep, sharp indentation, 
or notch, so as to resemble what in architecture is called a bead. 
From the initial point of the latitudinal line, near the circle, it 
stretches away to the west, through field and forest; intent only 
upon preserving its course, without being deflected by either the 
channel of a river or the crest of a mountain. Climbing obliquely 
the sunmiit of the Alleghenies, it turns its back upon the fountains 
which feed the Atlantic ; and, rushing down into the Ohio Valley, 
stoops in its pathway to drink of the crystal waters of the Yough- 
iogheny. Rising refreshed, and with its eye still fixed to the West, 
it hurries on, regardless of the intersecting line of a sister sover- 
eignty ; and, stalking across the Cheat and the Monongahela, stops 
amid the Fish creek hills, within half a day's journey of the river 
Ohio ; as if exhausted by the rugged route it has traversed, and 
unable to reach that great natural boundary, recognized by every 
other h'tate than Pennsylvania which its current laves. 

Upon a closer inspection it will be seen that it is equally regard- 
less of the established lines of admeasurement upon the earth's 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 207 

surface ; conforming to neither of the limits of a degree of latitude, 
nor to any of its easily-comprehended parts ; and this, without being 
forced into its anomalous position by any object, or obstacle of 
nature. For at neither end does it terminate, nor in any part of 
its extended course does it touch, upon any prominent natural 
landmark. It is wholly, in every part, and in all its forms, an arti- 
ficial, arbitrary line, without a model, or a fellow upon the conti- 
nent.^ And yet it is perhaps more unalterable than if nature had 
made it : for it limits the sovereignty of four States, each of whom 
is as tenacious of its peculiar systems of law as of its soil. It is 
the boundary of empire. 

Whence came these peculiarities — this palpable disregard of the 
plain provisions of nature and science for the divisions of do- 
minion ? Is this singular line the result of compulsion, or of compact 
— of noisy strife, or of quiet agreement ? How old is it — what its 
ancestry — whence its name ? These, with many other curious 
questions which spring from the subject, take hold upon the past, 
and find their solution only in history. Strange subject, too, for 
history, is a line, defined to be " length, without breadth or thick- 
ness." Yet this line has a history of a hundred years' duration, 
spreading out over more than half the old thirteen States, and 
sinking deep into the very foundations of their being. It abounds 
in curious conflict of grant and construction, in bold encroachments 
upon vested rights, in artful remedies for inconvenient limitations. 
Kings, lords and commoners, English, Swedes and Dutch, Quakers 
and Catholics, figure conspicuously in the narrative, with dramatic 
eftect. Upon much of the disputed margins of the line have been 
enacted scenes of riot, invasion, and even murder; which want only 
the fanciful pen of a Scott or an Irving to develop their romantic 



1 In some respects, the celebrated 36° 30'' resembles Mason and Dixon's Line ; with 
which political writers and declaimers sometimes confound it. But it has neither the 
beauty, the accuracy, nor the historic interest of our line. It is, or rather was intended 
to be, the southern boundary of the States of Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri ; but it 
has been most bunglingly run, as a glance at a United States map will show. Begin- 
ning correctly, on the Atlantic, at Currituck inlet, by the time it gets to the western 
confine of North Carolina — to which it was run before the Revolution — it is some two 
miles to the south. Its extension was resumed in 1779-80 ; and after correcting the 
first error the surveyors run into a greater one, for at the Tennessee river they are 
some ten or twelve miles too far to the north. When afterwards extended to the south- 
west corner of Missouri, the surveyors drop down to the true 36° 30'', and run it out 
truly ; except the deviation, west of the Mississippi, to take in the New Madrid settle- 
ment. West of the south-west corner of Missouri, this line of 36° 30^ has a history 
■which it is too soon yet to write. 



208 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

interest. In the strife and negotiations whicli led to its establish- 
ment, endurance and evasion were put to their highest tests : in 
tracing it, science achieved one of its most arduous labors. In in- 
tricacy and interest, if not in importance, the subject is inferior to 
none in American history. We regret that we can give to it here 
only a condensed exposition. That which, without undue expan- 
sion, could fill a volume, must here be limited to a brief statement 
of why, when and how the line was established, accompanied only 
by such illustrative details as have interest to us who stand upon its 
western end. It will be seen also that the subject is an indispensa- 
ble preliminary to the boundary controversy with Virginia, to 
which we will introduce the reader in our next chapter. And 
although the two subjects are as inseparable as the lines to which 
they relate, they are sufficiently distinct to allow them to be sep- 
arately considered. We take up the oldest first. 

Some inconsiderate reader may be disposed to turn away in 
disgust from a further perusal of this sketch, upon the assumption 
that Mason and Dixon's Line can have no other history than a di- 
atribe upon the stale subject of slavery. To give instant relief to 
such an one, we promise to say not one word upon that subject-. 
Historically, the line has nothing to do with human bondage. True, 
in the course of human events it has come to pass that it has long 
been the limit, to the northward, of the " peculiar institution ;" and 
were it not that the "pan-handle," like an upheaval of schist through 
a stratum of free old red sand-stone, mars its continuity, it would, 
by direct connection with the Ohio, form, with it, an unbroken 
barrier to the desolations* of slave labor, from the Delaware to the 



2 We use this term in no harsh or political sense. Except in the culture of the great 
Southern staples of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco, slaveholders themselves regard 
slave labor as unprofitable, and mourn over its desolations. Wasteful and imperfect 
tillage and depreciation of intelligent white labor, are its unavoidable tendencies. Hence 
the Southern avidity for neio lands in the West, wherein to plant the "institution." 
Experience has shown that outside appeals and arguments, drawn from the right and 
wrong of the "relation," will never sever the South from slavery. Nor will climate effect 
the cure. Interest — loss and gain, are the great solvents before which it will crumble 
and dissolve. Whenever it can acquire no more virgin soil upon which to spread itself — 
whenever its peculiar staples can be as well produced by free labor, or find substitutes in 
the products of free white labor — then will slaveholders become the advocates of " abo- 
lition." Until then, the policy of the North is to let them alone ; and firmly, but kindly, 
to resist any further enlargement of their territorial or political dominion. For they 
seek to acquire and maintain political ascendancy only to preserve and advance their 
interests Happily, there is yet room enough for all — white and colored, native and 
foreign. Let each have their proper rights and places ; and if we cannot agree, let us 
not quarrel, about their distribution. 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 209 

Mississippi, But it was established for no such purpose, and when 
established, negro slavery existed upon both sides of it. That it 
has ceased to exist on one side and not on the other, are fixed facts, 
attributable to influences which we are not here called to consider. 
We have to treat of transactions that reach further back upon the 
track of time. 

The discovery of America, in 1492, was a great event in the 
annals of human progress. And yet it seems to have come too 
soon; for it required the lapse of another century to render it 
available for any real good to the mass of mankind. In the mean- 
time, however, mind was becoming emancipated, and separate 
portions of the ISTew World were being appropriated by the nations 
who were, in due time, to people its wastes. 

The mode of acquiring title to distinct parts of the American 
continent by the old European nations, had in it more of form than 
of fact, more of might than of right. It consisted in sending out 
some bold navigator, who, after sailing in sight of some hitherto 
undiscovered coast, or up some bay or river, upon whose surface 
had never before been cast the shadow of a ship, landed upon its 
shores, unfurled the flag under which he sailed, and, with cross in 
hand, devoutly took possession for his country, to the exclusion of 
all other Christian claimants. In this consisted the vaunted Right 
of Prior Discovery — a kind of kingly "squatter sovereignty," or 
national preemption, founded upon a necessity for some limit to 
the land-greed of nations as well as individuals. 

The domain of England in North America, conferred by the 
prior discoveries in 1497, of John Cabot, and his son Sebastian, 
extended, along the Atlantic coast, from 'N. latitude 58° to 31°, 
or from Labrador to Florida. Her rights to the extreme latitudes 
of this range were, for a while, and very justly, too, disputed by 
France and Spain. She, therefore, wisely postponed asserting her 
rights to these, until after she had firmly seated herself within the 
temperate latitudes of her claim; which, although more southward 
than her own, were nearly isothermal in temperature, and congenial 
to the physical constitutions and industrial pursuits of her people. 
In due time she was thus enabled to crush out the pretensions of 
her rivals; and, in the meantime, to profit by their competition 
with her, and with each other. 

The era of earnest eftbrt in England to colonize America clusters 

within half a century around the year 1600. Other European 

nations awoke to like attempts within the same period and within 

the same latitudes; some of which will demand our notice in the 

14 



210 THH MONONGAHELA OP OLD. [CH. VIII. 

sequel. We pass over the premature and ill-fated efforts of Raleigh 
and Gilbert, from 1578 to 1588, under the patronage of Elizabeth; 
ill-fated because premature, not because ill-designed, so far as under 
the control of human will. Hence those early efforts were fruitless 
of aught else than disaster and discouragement, save that they 
afforded to that haughty queen the privilege of glorifying her 
"cheerless state of single blessedness" by giving the appellation 
of Virginia to the whole of her American possessions. 

In 1603, Westminster Abbey received the remains of Elizabeth. 
The Tudor dynasty was now ended. Had our colonies been planted 
under their auspices, they would probably have grown into vast 
absolute feudalities. Happily for their fundamental adaptedness 
to become the nurseries of civil and religious liberty, nearly all 
the Old Thirteen drew their charters from the prodigality, and 
their founders from the oppressed subjects, of the Stuart race of 
kings ; who were as lavish of their distant domains upon " favorite 
courtiers, or troublesome subjects," as they were tenacious of power 
and prerogative at home. The set time for founding an empire of 
freedom had now come, and they were the appointed agents to 
effect it. Unwittingly, they became sponsors for foundlings, who 
within two centuries rose in independence, as if to avenge their 
dethronement upon the haughtj^ House of Hanover. They gave 
away the soil of half a continent, which it cost them nothing to 
acquire, and with it the seeds of institutions which " were not the 
offspring of deliberate forethought, which were not planted by the 
hand of man ; — they grew like the lilies, which neither toil nor 
spin."^ 

In 1606, King James I. of England, leaving ample margins at 
the North and the South for disputed dominion, granted eleven 
degrees of latitude on the Atlantic — from N. latitude 34° to 45°, 
or from the southern point of North Carolina to the northern con- 
fines of New York and Vermont, to two companies of corporators ; 
one of which, called the London Company, was to possess the 
South ; the other, called the Plymouth Company, was to possess 
the North ; with an intervening community of territory between 



2 Bancroft. The voluminous History of the United States by this eminent statesman 
and scholar, although invaluable for its fullness, richness and general accuracy, is 
lamentably deficient in defining the limits of the ancient colonial grants. Indeed, who- 
ever wishes, from our most popular standard writers, to compile a boxindary history, 
undertakes an arduous and perplexing labor. Generally, they are meagre, confused and 
conflicting. 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE, 211 

them, from N". latitude 38° to 41°. Virginia was the common 
name to both, but it was soon exclusively appropriated by the 
southern company, which was the most efficient. Under its 
auspices, in 1607, the first enduring English settlement upon the 
continent was planted at Jamestown. Even the Puritan Pilgrims 
who landed from the Mayflower, on Plymouth Rock, in cold 
December, 1620, sailed from Holland under a grant from this 
company. 

In 1609, the same facile king, by a new or amended charter, 
greatly enlarged the privileges and territory of the southern com- 
pany. He now gave it a front upon the Atlantic coast of four 
hundred miles, of which Old Point Comfort, the southern cape of 
James river, was to be the half way point: — " and from the sea- 
coast of the precinct aforesaid up into the land throughout, from 
sea to sea, west and north-west:" — very ample limits, truly. Old 
Point Comfort is nearly upon IST. latitude 37°. Hence, at 69^ 
miles to a degree, this enlargement had little effect upon the south- 
ern limit of the Old Dominion ; but northwardly, it gave to her 
two degrees of latitude of what had before been common territory, 
and (making due allowance for the coast-line being the base of the 
triangle,) carried her about up to N. latitude 40°. This charter was 
revokedj or annulled, by the king, in 1624 ; but, except when 
portions of her territory were, by several subsequent grants, con- 
veyed away to other favorites, to become the germs of other States, 
no further change was ever afterwards made in the boundaries of 
Old Virginia. 

The old i^orth Virginia Company was a rickety, short-lived con- 
cern. It accomplished nothing towards colonization. It, however, 
did one good thing. The southern company having, by maltreat- 
ment, driven from its service its father and defender, Captain John 
Smith, its northern rival gave him employment, and sent him out 
to explore and map its territory. He had proved his competency 
by having before performed similar labors upon the region around 
the Chesapeake. Having accomplished the work assigned him by 
the Plymouth Company, he returned to England in 1614 ; drew 
out a map and an account of his explorations, which he presented 
to the king's son, Prince Charles, who thereupon named the terri- 
tory New England. Here ended the old North Virginia Company, 
whose territory was from I^. latitude 41° to 45°. 

While the Pilgrim Fathers were on their ocean way from old to 
new Plymouth, in 1620, a new charter was granted by James I. to 
a new corporation, by the name of " The Council established at 



212 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, order- 
ing and governing of New England in America." Its territory 
was "all that part of America lying in breadth from 40° to 48° IST. 
latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid throughout the 
main land, from sea to sea: " — a grant which would have outlimited 
its southern rival, had it not been that, ere tins, the French had 
crept in, through the gulf and river St. Lawrence, behind them, 
and founded Canada. It, however, became the father of the New 
England States. From it the numerous colonies, of which they 
are now the aggregates, derived their territorial grants. Their 
charters of privileges and government they obtained directly from 
the throne. These grants were regarded as kind of sub-infeudations, 
carved out of the original grant ; and, by 1635, had well nigh 
exhausted it. New England, however, was regarded as an entirety 
until after 1632, the year in which Virginia suffered her first dis- 
memberment. 

We have been thus particular in developing the foundations and 
territorial juxtaposition of these two old parent colonies, New 
England and Virginia, for the purpose of determining with precision 
at what point or line they united. The materiality of the inquiry 
will soon be apparent. Manifestly, their common boundary was 
the 40th line of north latitude. There we leave them together in 
peace, resting upon the bosom of Pennsylvania, while we go back 
to trace up the strife we are soon to contemplate. 

Ere yet these two old parent colonies had solemnized their 
nuptials at 40°, in 1609, there sailed from the Texel, in Holland, a 
well appointed ship, commanded by Sir Henry Hudson, an English- 
man then in the employ of the Dutch East India Company. His 
object was to find a north-west passage to China. Driven out of 
the arctic inlets by ice and fogs, he turns his prow southward along 
the English- American coast, as far as the Chesapeake. Having 
studied Captain Smith's map of that region, he knew where he 
was. His object was discovery. He again steers northward. 
Keeping more closely to the shore, he discovered the Delaware 
Bay, into which he sailed ; but its flat shores not suiting his taste, 
he repassed its capes without landing. Coasting along the sands 
of New Jersey, he discovered the entrance to the New York 
waters.* He enters and anchors within Sandy Hook. The forests 



* Although Hudson was probably the earliest European discoverer of the Delaware, 
yet Veirazzani, who sailed under the flag of France, was in New York harbor before him, 
in 1524. The Delaware lakes its name from Lord Delaware, Governor of the South Vir- 
ginia Colony in 1009, who, it is said, perished ofl" its capes. 



en. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 213 

and slopes of the Nevisink hills were inviting. The natives were 
kind and inquisitive. He had found the objects of his pursuit. 
Before he left he passed the Narrows, sounded his way up the 
river which now bears his name, beyond the Highlands, and, in a 
boat, went above Albany. Satisfied, he returned to England, and 
reported his discoveries to the Dutch. The next year, while in 
the service of London merchants, seeking the north-west passage, j 
he perished in the great northern bay whose name is his only 
monument. 

Holland, or more properly the States General of the United 
^Netherlands, was then the most energetic maritime power of 
Europe. They quickly availed themselves of Hudson's American 
discoveries ; and while Smith was exploring New England, they 
were seating themselves upon what are now the southern territo- 
ries of JSTew York and eastern New Jersey. Operating entirely by 
the agency of a corporation — the Dutch West India Company, 
whose chief aim was trade, they, for many years evinced no design 
to form any settlements beyond such as were convenient attendants 
upon traffic. They abode in strength upon the island of Manhattan, 
founding there, by the name of New Amsterdam, what has become 
the greatest commercial city of the New "World. Gradually they 
assumed the form and functions of a colony. They spread them- 
selves from Staten Island to Canada, and from the Connecticut to 
the Delaware, giving to their claim the name of New Netherlands. 
Although in the grant of New England, in 1620, there was an 
express exception of territory then in the possession of any other 
Christian prince or State, yet England and New England ever 
regarded them as intruders, and omitted no opportunity of attack 
and annoyance. They, however, by policy and prowess, were en- 
abled to maintain their possessions for half a century, "beset with 
forts, and sealed with their blood." They were there by sufferance ; 
but in the pages of one of our richest American classics, and in the 
names of men and places upon both shores of the Hudson, they were 
there forever. It is, however, to one of the most thoroughly effiiced 
vestiges of their power that our subject is most nearly related. 

The Dutch continued to keep an eye to the shores of the Dela- 
ware. They built Fort Nassau on the Jersey side, at Gloucester 
Point, about four miles below Philadelphia. Cornelius May, one 
of their sea captains, divided his name between its capes, calling 
the stream South river, as they had called the Hudson, North river. 
Five years after tlje Virginia charter was revoked, and ere its 
northern latitudes had been re-granted or settled, in 1629, Godyn, 



214 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

a Hollander, bought from the natives a tract of about thirty miles 
front on the western coast of the Delaware Bay, between the 
southern limit of Kent county and Cape Henlopen: — not the cape 
now known by that name, but a headland fifteen miles further 
south, now called Fenwick's Island, where the southern limit of 
Delaware cuts the Atlantic. In 1631, he and his associates sent 
from the Texel, under the conduct of Devries, a trio of vessels, 
laden with men and women to the number of thirty, cattle, farming 
implements and seeds. Thej^ landed upon the desired coast, and 
there, near the present site of Lewistown, planted the colony of 
Swaanendael. Wheat, tobacco and furs were the objects of the 
settlement. At the end of a year Devries left it, begirt with the 
forests and the ocean, in peace and prosperity. The next year he 
returned, and found its site marked only by the blackened huts and 
bleaching bones of his countrymen. But this short-lived colony 
was the cradle of a commonwealth. The seed thus buried in blood 
and ashes, ere long germinated and grew into the State of Dela- 
ware — small for its age, but good for its size. 

One of the Secretaries of State to James I. was Sir George Calvert, 
an eminent favorite with the court and the people, and whom the 
king created Lord of the Barony of Baltimore in Ireland. He re- 
signed his office to embrace the Catholic faith ; and his new-born zeal 
and love of colonial aggrandizement soon impelled him to seek for 
a grant of American territory whereto his religious brethren might 
flee from the rigors of conformity. His first resort was to ISTew- 
foundland ; but failing there, he looked down into the more genial 
latitudes of Virginia. He had been a member of the old South 
Virginia Company, and hence looked for some favor in that quar- 
ter. This was in 1629. The Virginia Cavaliers, however, treated 
him rather cavalierl}^ and put at him the test oaths of conformity 
and allegiance. These he declined. He knew that the South Vir- 
ginia charter was annulled, and that the unsettled wastes of her 
territory were subject anew to the royal grant. He saw that no 
settlements existed north of 38° and the Potomac. Its super- 
abundant water privileges and luxuriant forests were sufficient temp- 
tation to become its proprietary, without the incentive of revenge 
upon his old Virginia associates. He returned to England, and 
besought its investiture. It was well known there that not only 
the Dutch, but the Swedes and French, were preparing to send col- 
onies into these central parts of the English dominion ; but it was 
not known that any had yet been sent, or if Devries' voyage was 
known, it was unheeded. The Swedes had not yet moved, and the 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 215 

French never did. England herself asserted the need of occu- 
pancy to perfect title to the wilderness. Hence these efforts of 
other nations stimulated the readiness of the king to yield to the 
solicitude of Lord Baltimore. The charter, drawn by Sir George 
himself with unprecedented wisdom and liberality, was prepared ; 
but ere it passed the seals, he died ; and his son, Cecil Calvert, 
inherited his Irish title and seigniory expectant in America. 

In June, 1632, Charles I. granted unto his "trusty and well 
beloved subject," Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, all that part of 
the peninsula, or eastern shore of the Chesapeake, north of a 
line drawn eastward from the mouth of the Potomac through 
Watkins' Point and the mouth of the river Wighco, or Pocomoke, 
to the ocean; which line is nearly on north latitude 38°; — "and 
between that bound on the soath, unto that part of Delaware Bay, 
on the north, which lieth under the fortieth degree of north latitude, 
where New England iermina.tes ; and all that tract of land from the 
aforesaid Bay of Delaware, in a right line, by the degree aforesaid to 
the (rue meridian of tlie first fountain of the river Potomac, and from 
thence tending towards the south to the further bank of said river, 
and following the west and south side of it to a certain place," kc, 
to the beginning. The young proprietary grantee being of the 
same faith of his fatljer and of Charles' aspiring Queen, Henrietta 
Maria, she named the grant Maryland. 

At the date of this charter, save Claiborne's trading settlement 
upon Kent Island in the Chesapeake, which does not concern us 
here, the whole territory, within the conhnes of the grant, was a 
waste of woods and waters, uninhabited by a civilized man ; and 
so it was recited to be, in the preamble — '■'■hactenus terra inculta." 
We will soon sed what ominous import lay hidden in these un- 
meaning words. The obvious intent of this grant was to convey 
to Lord Baltimore the English title to all of the old revoked Vir- 
ginia grant which was north of the Potomac and of the base line 
on the peninsula. It was intended to carry Maryland close up to 
New England, and full out to the Delaware. It can mean nothing 
else. No other grant, no settlement interfered. It was entitled 
to go to its uttermost bounds. The only real ambiguity that 
lurked in its descriptive terms was a latejit one, of very consider- 
able importance, which we will discover after a while. 

The ISTew England Company, as well as King Charles, had been 
outwitted in the charter which he, in 1629, gave to Massachusetts. 
It conferred privileges far in advance of the age. Thinking to 
undermine it, the Council at Plymouth in Devon, in 1635, sur- 



216 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

rendered its charter: and thus were all the unsettled latitudes of 
New England, south of the colonies which had been carved out of 
it, exposed to new grants and settlement. North latitude 40° was 
no longer its southern limit. 

New actors now come upon the stage. Grustavus Adolphus of 
Sweden had long meditated the planting of a Protestant colony 
upon the Delaware. But war diverted both his zeal and his funds. 
He fell, in defence of the lieformation, upon the bloody Held of 
Lutzen. But his spirit remained in his Chancellor, Oxenstiern, 
who guided the helm of affairs during the minority of Queen 
Christiana. Under his auspices, late in 1637, the first party of 
Swedes and Fins sailed for the Delaware, where they landed, at 
Cape Inlopen, early in 1638. We know that a much earlier date 
has been given to their advent ; but later researches have disclosed 
the error, and thereby dissipated a favorite ground of attack upon 
Lord Baltimore's title to the Delaware shore, under cover of ^'- terra 
inculta." Upon their arrival they bought from the natives rights 
to settle all along the western shore, up to Trenton Falls ; and gave 
to their domain the name of New Sweden. The Dutch scowled 
upon them, but the terror of Swedish valor gave them protection. 
The new colonists grew rapidly in numbers and prosperity, built 
forts and churches, and were surpassingly suq^essful in cultivating 
the soil, and in trade and favor with the Indians. In a few years 
the power of Sweden fell; and thereupon the envy of the New 
Netherlanders rose to resistance. In 1655, they sent into the 
Delaware a fleet of seven good Dutch ships, well manned, under 
the command of Governor Stuyvesant, who quickly reduced the 
Swedish forts and reestablished the Dutch dominion. Annexing 
their conquests to the effaced colony of Swaanendael, they dated 
back their title, by relation, to the purchase by Godyn. It was 
this fiction that overreached the title of Lord Baltimore. Had 
Leonard Calvert led the first settlers of Maryland to the Delaware 
coast of his brother's domain, the American confederacy would 
probably have had one little State less. 

Charles I. was beheaded in 1649 ; and during the troubles which 
preceded that event, as well as during the supremacy of Cromwell, 
the Lords Proprietary of Maryland were less anxious about its 
boundaries than its existence. The Catholic colony grew slowly, 
and was weak. Hence no decisive eflbrts to dispossess the Dutch 
were made until after the Restoration, in 1660; and then it was too 
late. Possession gave confidence, if not power. And to all the 
arguments and entreaties of Lord Baltimore, the Dutch West 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 217 

India Company answered : " We will defend our South river pos- 
sessions even unto the spilling of blood." 

Charles II. came to the throne of his father in 1660. Proud, 
profligate and prodigal, he cared less for the preservation of his 
dominions than for the gratification of his passions. Alexander 
wept when he had no more nations to conquer — Charles II. sighed 
when he had no more distant territories to give away. He was 
justly caricatured in Holland with a courtesan upon each arm, 
and courtiers picking his pockets. This "screwed his courage to 
the sticking point," and he resolved to stick the States General in 
the extremities of their possessions. His first blow was at New 
Guinea, in Africa — then at New Netherlands, in America. But 
he must needs first give away the territory to be conquered. 
Finding no courtier greedy enough to take it, with its in- 
cumbrances, he, in March, 1664, granted it to his brother, the 
Duke of York, afterwards James II. Thereupon he sent out a 
squadron commanded by Col. Nicholls, who, with recruits from 
Connecticut, appeared in hostile array before the grim-visaged 
defences of Manhattan ; and, too easily, owing to intestine divi- 
sions, achieved a bloodless conquest of New Netherlands upon the 
North river. The reduction of the South river dependencies, by 
Sir Robert Carr, quickly ensued. Governor Stuyvesant became 
an English subject. New Amsterdam became New York; Fort 
Orange, Albany ; and Niewer Amstel, New Castle. In the vicis- 
situdes of the war, the Dutch, in 1673, re-conquered their North 
river possessions ; but only to be, the next year, again surrendered 
and confirmed by treaty to the English. And now the Anglo- 
Saxon dominion upon the Atlantic coast was unbroken from the 
St. Croix to Florida. 

The westward limit of the Duke of York's grant was the Dela- 
ware river. New Jersey he granted to two favorites. Lord John 
Berkely and Sir George Carteret, two of the proprietaries of the 
Carolinas. New York he kept for himself, retaining with it his 
conquests on the western shore of the Delaware ; which hence- 
forth, while he held them, were governed by deputy governors, 
resident at New Castle. 

We are now ready to introduce the last great actor in this com- 
plicated boundary drama, — the immortal founder of Pennsylvania, 
William Peim. Assuming that our readers are familiar with his 
history and character, we will not pall them by any attempt at 
their rehearsal. Our subject is not a life, but a line. It sufiiceth 
us here to know that, within five or six years before his purchase 



218 THE MONONGAHELA OP OLD. [CH. VIII. 

of Pennsylvania, he had become deeply interested in the owner- 
ship and settlement of West Jersey, and of East Jersey, too. This 
turned his attention to the yet ungranted territory lying directly 
west of New Jersey, and of which he had a "goodly report." 
Benevolence rather than ambition impelled him to its acquisition. 

Except Georgia, which was founded so late as 1732, Pennsyl- 
vania was the last of the old thirteen British colonies to derive 
its charter from the crown. It is the only one also whose territory 
is not touched by the briny waters of the Atlantic. At the date 
of her title, all the sea coast claimed by England had been "taken 
up," and she was forced to take an inland position, — not a bad one, 
however, but one with which her proprietary grantee was at first 
greatly dissatisfied, and for which to provide a remedy, as he sup- 
posed, he was led into the controversy with Maryland, which we 
are now soon to consider. 

The ostensible consideration of the grant of Pennsylvania to 
William Penn, was a debt for services and of gratitude to his 
father. Admiral Penn. But the son was not the less careful about 
the terms of his charter, because it was given in payment of an old 
debt. It would be insulting his intelligence, to doubt his full and 
accurate knowledge of all the grants of English territory in 
America, which we have noticed in this sketch, — their limits and 
their derivations. It is in evidence, upon most indisputable 
authority — nay, admitted, that when he petitioned for a grant of 
territory, in 1680, it was to lie west of the Delaware river and 
north of Maryland. It is also admitted that Lord Baltimore's 
charter was the model used by Penn, who himself drafted his 
charter for Pennsylvania. He thus had express notice that Mary- 
land reached to the Delaware Bay, and took in all the land abutting 
thereon " which lieth under the fortieth degree of north latitude, 
where New England terminates." He thereby knew, or was 
bound to know, that New England did not terminate at any 
fractional part of the fortieth degree, nor at line 39°, its southern 
confine. For, a degree of latitude is not an indivisible line, but a 
definite space, or belt, upon the earth's surface, of 69 J statute 
miles. Nothing short of the northern confine of the fortieth 
degree would give to Old Virginia her complement of two hundred 
miles north of Old Point Comfort. And the New England grant 
was '■'■from the fortieth degree, &c." 

Great precaution and formality were used in acting upon Penn's 
charter. It was held up under consideration for nine months. 
The petition and original draft of the charter are not extant. It 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 219 

is known that the latter had to undergo many modifications. When 
presented to the king, they were referred to the Duke of York's 
secretary and Lord Baltimore's agents, in order "that they might 
report how far the petitioners' pretensions may consist with their 
boundxiries." Both agreed to his proposals, provided his patent 
might be so worded as not to affect their rights. The Duke's 
commissioners insisted that Perm's southern line should run at least 
twenty miles northward of New Castle. At length the boundaries 
were adjusted so as to please all parties. And, after the articles 
had passed the scrutiny and emendations of the Bishop of London 
and Lord Chief Justice JSTorth, who shaped their church and 
governmental franchises, so as to eschew the "undue liberties" 
which had been granted to Massachusetts and to Maryland, the 
charter was approved by the Lords of Trade and Plantations, and 
prepared for the king's allowance. Peun's success depended upon 
concession and conciliation : resistance or pertinacity would have 
endangered all. And yet he obtained a wonderfully liberal grant, 
both of power and territory. 

On the 4th of March, 1681, King Charles II. granted unto " our 
trusty and well beloved subject, William Penn, Esquire^'' the terri- 
tory of Pennsylvania, [Penn's Woods,] by metes and bounds, as fol- 
lows, viz : 

" All that tract, or part of land in America, with the islands 
therein contained, as the same is hounded on the east by Delaware 
river, from twelve miles northward of New Castle town, unto the three 
and fortieth degree of north latitude, if said river doth extend so 
far northward, but if not, then by a meridian line from the head of 
said river to said forty-third degree. The said land to extend west- 
ward five degrees in longitude, to be computed from said eastern 
bounds. And the said lands to be bounded on the. north by the 
beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, and 
on the south by a circle drawn at twelve miles distance from New Castle, 
northward and westward unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of 
northern latitude, and then by a straight line westward to the limits of 
longitude above mentioned." 

The partisan advocates of Penn^s pretensions contend that this 
grant gave to Pennsylvania three degrees of latitude upon the Del- 
aware, minus the circular-headed abscission around New Castle — 
that by the '■'■beginning'' of the fortieth degree, '■'■unto" which the 
circular line, drawn at twelve miles distance northward and westward 
from New Castle, was to reach, was the southern beginning of that 
degree. The absurdity of this construction, when applied to the 



220 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

parallels of latitude as they now are, is apparent. By no geometrical 
use of the terms can a circle of twelve miles radius from New Cas- 
tle reach either beginning of the fortieth degree, much less its southern 
confine, which is nearly fifty miles distant. Moreover, the circle 
was to come ^Hmto" it hy being drawn '■'■northward and westward." 
The moment it began to go southward and eastward it must stop, 
and there the " straight line westward" must begin. 

We cannot find that William Penn himself ever asserted this 
absurd pretence; or, that he was to have three degrees of latitude, 
though his sons and their apologists did assert it most strenuously. 
The nearest that he ever came to it was to say that he petitioned for 
Jive degrees of latitude, [evidently from 40° to 45°, the old northern 
limit of the North Virginia Company,] but when before the Board 
of Plantations, watching, not urging, his petition, " the Lord Presi- 
dent turned to me and said, ' Mr. Penn, will not three degrees serve 
your turn ?' ' I answered,' says he, ' I submit both the what and how 
to the honorable Board.'" He admits also that this inquiry was 
prompted by its being urged that Lord Baltimore had but tioo 
degrees, which must have meant, from 38° to 40° ; for 38° being 
fixed in his patent, by natural marks, if Maryland must stop at 39° — 
the southern beginning of the fortieth degree, then she would have 
but 07ie degree. 

We may as well now disclose that latent ambiguity which lurks 
in Lord Baltimore's patent, but which becomes a patent one in 
William Penn's. Where, upon the ground, in lt'32, and in 1680, was 
that artificial line, marked " 40°," believed to be located ? The answer 
to this question solves all the difficulty. 

The knowledge of American geography, in those days, was 
very imperfect. It extended little beyond the great headlands, 
bays and rivers, which varied the outline of the Atlantic coast, and 
its immediate contiguities. But the high contracting parties, who 
dealt in conveyances which covered a continent, assumed that they 
knew all about it; and that capes, rivers, bays, islands and towns, 
must conform to distances in miles and in degrees of latitude. 
They were less precise in their use of terms which were to define 
the boundaries of independent sovereignties, than are people now- 
a-days in describing a town lot. The consequences of this headi- 
ness and heedlessness were conflicting grants and angry conflicts, 
memorable instances of which are now before us. 

The only authoritative map, in 1632, of the localities upon which 
this strife grew, was that of the renowned Captain Smith, already 
referred to. And it would seem that some of the errors upon its 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 221 

face were continued down to 1681. It is very certain that one of 
them was. By that map, the transit of line 40° across the Delaware 
was fixed about — a little below — where New Castle is. Penn says it 
was at Boles' Isle — but where that is we do not know. Others 
fixed it at the head of the hay — but that is very indefinite ; for where 
the river ends and the bay begins is not agreed. Penn puts the 
bay thirty miles below ]!^ew Castle : if so, his circular line could 
never attain " unto" it. Line 38°, the northern confine of the first 
South Virginia grant, was correctly fixed on Watkius' Point. The 
shortenings were between that and JSTew Castle. The efi'ect of this 
error — besides eighty years of angry strife — was to contract Mary- 
land, and, as we shall see, correspondingly to widen Pennsylvania. 

We have seen that the Duke of York insisted at first that Penn's 
southern line should be twenty miles north of I^ew Castle. This 
was to keep clear of his Swedo-Dutch dominions. But, inasmuch 
as that would leave an indefinite ungranted vacancy north of 40°, 
the circle was introduced, and the radius shortened to twelve miles, 
so as thereby, by a " northward and westward" sweep, and without 
coming any nearer the Delaware, to reach the " beginning of the 
fortieth degree," and leave no vacancy. 

This collation of the facts and terms of the two grants solves all 
the mystery which hung around them for a century. It undoes 
the sophistry which claimed for Pennsylvania three degrees of lati- 
tude. The sophism consisted in assuming that as Penn's northern 
confine was to be line 42° — the southern beginning of the forty- 
third degree, therefore, as the same words were used, his southern 
limit must be line 39° — the southern beginning of the fortieth 
degree. But Penn must be considered as standing between these 
two confines ; reaching with one hand to the southern beginning 
of the former degree, and with the other to the northern beginning 
of the latter. It matters not that, upon maps and globes, the 
degrees are numbered from the equator northward, so that 39° is 
the beginning of the fortieth degree. Reverse the direction, and 
40° is its beginning; just as in surveying, the line which is north 
39° east, is, when reversed, south 39° west.^ In our next chapter 



^ We adopt this tkw of the case with some hesitancy — not because we doubt its cor- 
rectness, but because It stands opposed to tlio construction given to Penn's charter by 
nearly all the writers upon it whom we have consulted. Of these are Proud, (History 
of Pennsylvania,) Bancroft, (History United States, vol. ii. p. 362,) N. B. Craig, (1 
Olden Time,) Darby, (History of Pennsylvania,) not to mention the sons of Fenn, their 
agents, attorneys and Governors, in the controversies with Maryland and Virginia. 
The late James Dunlop, Esq., in his " Treatise upon Mason & Dixon's Line," (i Olden 



222 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

we will see, with complacent wonder, what mighty leverage there 
was in this pretence to give to Pennsylvania a most important 
addition to her western territory. 

But we are getting into the strife before all the elements which 
engendered it are brought into action. We return to our narrative. 

Penn was a favorite, but not a courtier, at the court of the 
Stuarts. Uprightness and benevolence can commend their possess- 
ors to influence, even with the most dissolute. Penn had laudable 
purposes — to his sect and his colony — to accomplish, by his com- 
placency. That he was thrice imprisoned for conscience sake, 
and thrice discharged without guilt, is his triple shield against all 
the darts of envy and abuse which his traducers, from Oldmixou to 
Macaulay, have hurled against him." His very innoceucy led him 
to boast of his influence. In the careless lapse of years which 
intervened from the Duke's conquest to Penn's proprietorship of 
Pennsylvania, some tenantry of Lord Baltimore had settled upon 
the western shore of the Delaware, within his chartered limits. 
Penn, ere he had visited the localities, was led to believe they were 
upon his territory. In September, 1681, he wrote them a friendly 
general letter, warning them "to pay no more taxes or assessments 



Time, 530,) alone sustains our view, and he but scouts at the popuhxr construction. Wc 
adopted it at first impression ourself ; but research and reflection compelled us to the 
opinion we here, and elsewhere in this and the next chapter, enunciate. There is no 
disloyalty in it; for we consider it more to tlie honor of Pennsylvania and her illustri- 
ous founder, than the opposite construction. Why put him in the awkward predica- 
ment of wilfully overlapping a degree of Lord Baltimore's grant, when there is no need 
for it? and if he and his successors gained for Pennsylvania more territory than they 
contracted for, and gained it honestly, so much the better for them, and us who enjoy it. 
^ " From his early youth to old age, he was a man of mark, and lived constantly in 
the eye of the public ; surrounded by enemies ever ready to put the worst construction 
upon his conduct. He went through the furnace without the smell of fire upon his 
garments ; and left behind him a character for moral virtue upon which malice itself 
could fix no stain. * * * * That he was not habitually honest and upright is a his- 
torical proposition as absurd as it would be to say that Julius Ccesar was a coward, that 
Virgil had no poetic genius, or that Cicero could not speak Latin. Nay, he was some- 
thing more than an honest man. He was a philanthropist, who gave all he had and all 
he was, time, talents and fortune, to the service of mankind The heir of a large 
estate, the founder of the greatest city in North America, the sole owner of more than 
forty thousand square miles of land, he never spent a shilling in any vicious extrava- 
gance ; but his large-handed charities so exhausted his income, that in his old age he 
was imprisoned for debt. He had the unlimited confidence of a monarch wliose favor 
an unscrupulous man would have coined into countless heaps of gold; but he left the 
court with his hands empty ; and whosoever says they were not clean as well as empty, 
knows not whereof he aflSrms." — Judge Black's Address at Pennsylvania College, Gettys- 
burg, September, 185G. 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 223 

by any order or law of Maryland ; for if you do it will be greatly 
to your own wrong and my prejudice ; though I am not conscious to 
myself of such an insufficiency of poioer here with my superiors, as not 
to be able to loeather the difficulty if you should." This kind monition 
and harmless boast was the letting out of the water of strife — par- 
tisans rallied to their leaders — the contest was begun. 

When Penn's trusty kinsman, Markham, had landed his first 
emigrant party at Upland, his early care, under instructions from 
the king and the proprietor, was to confer with Lord Baltimore 
upon the interesting question of boundary. They met in the 
spring of 1682, and then first discovered, from a careful astronomical 
observation, what neither before knew, that the true line of 40° 
was above the mouth of the Schuylkill. Lord Baltimore's eye 
dilated — Markham's fell. What was to be done ? They parted in 
peace ; and Markham reports the annoying discovery to Penn, in 
London. 

Penn had wished and believed that his colony would take in 
the head of the Chesapeake, and be far enough down on the Dela- 
ware not to be locked up by ice and enemies. This discovery 
frosted his expectations, but did not freeze his energies. The 
Duke of York was his friend, and his West Delaware dependencies 
would give the desired outlet in that direction. True, the Duke 
had no title from the crown, and Baltimore had. But the Duke 
had possession. It was power against parchment ; and Penn 
wisely concluded that power would prevail. A glimmer of right 
broke forth from the smouldering ruins of Swaanendael, which 
diffused itself all along the shore from the false Cape of Henlopen 
to the mouth of Christiana. Penn rejoiced in its light. He im- 
portuned the Duke to convey to him these unproductive posses- 
sions. The Duke yielded ; and by two deeds, in August, 1682, 
invested Penn with all his titles to twelve miles around Kew 
Castle, and to all the coast below that to Henlopen. And now it 
was parchment and possession against parchment and right, with 
power as the preponderant in the unequal balance. " Without 
adopting," says an impartial historian,' "the harsh censure of 
Chalmers, who maintains that this transaction reflected dishonor, 
both on the Duke of York and William Penn, we can hardlj'^ fail 



' Sir James Grahame, of Scotland, whose "History of the Rise and Progress of the 
United States of North America, till the British Revolution in 1688," — two volumes 
octavo, — is exceedingly satisfactory upon our colonial titles and boundaries, especially 
those of purely English derivation. 



224 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

to regard it as a faulty and ambiguous proceeding, or to regret the 
proportions in whicla its attendant blame must be divided, between 
a prince distinguished even among the Stuarts for perfidy and 
injustice, and a patriarch renowned even among the Quakers for 
humanity and benevolence." 

Thus panoplied, Penn made his first visit to his Delaware 
domains, with "twenty-six sail" of colonists, in the autumn of 
1682. He landed at Kew Castle, and after receiving livery of 
seizin of his newly acquired " territories," and the homage of three 
thousand people, he repaired to Chester, (Upland,) which now was 
his capital ; for as yet Philadelphia had no existence. After trans- 
acting some governmental affairs, and paying his respects to the 
Duke's governor at New York, he repaired to Maryland, to 
confer with Charles, Lord Baltimore, about boundaries. The inter- 
view was friendly, but formal. It resulted in nothing, except to 
disclose more of the grounds of Penn's claim. ()ne was, that Lord 
Baltimore's two degrees were to consist of sixty miles each : — 
another, that being to have only lands^ "not yet cultivated or 
planted," [in 1632,] — hactenus terra inculia, — Delaware did not pass, 
for that it had been bought and planted by the Dutch ; " but if it 
did, it was forfeited, for not reducing it during twenty years, under 
the English sovereignty, of which he held it, but was at last re- 
duced by the king, and therefore his to give as he pleaseth." His 
lordship answered, "I stand on my patent." At a subsequent 
interview at New Castle, Penn offered to stand to the 40th line, 
provided Lord Baltimore would sell him some territory south of 
it on the Chesapeake, " at a gentlemanly price — so much per mile,'' 
in case he could not get it by latitude, so as to have a ^'' back port" 
to Pennsylvania. His lordship offered to barter some territory 
in that direction, for the " three lower counties" on Delaware Bay. 
" This," says Penn, "I presume he knew I would not do, for his 
Royal Highness had the one-half, and I did not prize the thing I 
desired at such a rate." But his lordship was inexorable, and 



8 It is strange that Penn was not afraid to hazard the use of this pretense, for the very 
same words are in the preamble of his own charter ; and the Delaware front of his grant, 
had, long before, been settled by Swedes, Dutch and English. He seems to have been 
aware of the frailty of his tenure; for, three days before he got his deeds for the " ter- 
ritories," he procured a release from the Duke of York of all his title to Pennsylvania. 
But if prior settlement rendered the grant void, the release could give it no validity ; es- 
pecially as the Duke himself had no other title than by conquest. 



CH. Vlir.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 225 

here friendly negotiations were suspended for half a cen- 

Lord Baltimore now assumed oiFensive attitudes. lie first made 
forcible entry upon Penn's territories. His next resort was to 
the king. The matter was referred to the Lords Committee of 
Trade and Plantations, before whom both parties appeared. Pend- 
ing the hearings, Charles II. died, and the Duke of York ascended 
the throne as James 11. To him the committee reported in ]^o- 
vember, 1685. As might have been expected, the decision was 
against Lord Baltimore. It, however, de.cided but one of the 
questions at issue — the rights of the parties upon the Delaware 
Bay ; leaving them still to find the " 40th degree " as best they 
could. The order of the king in council, based upon the report, 
was, that that part of the Chesapeake and Delaware peninsula 
which is between the latitude of Cape Ilenlopen and 40°, be divided 
by a right line into two equal parts: that the eastern half should 
"belong to his Majest}-,^" (viz: to King James, who granted it to 
William Penn, when Duke of York,) and the other half remain to 
the Lord Baltimore, as comprised in his charter." Thus was 
Maryland dismembered. The little State, cradled at Swaanendael, 
could now " stand alone." 

Except an ineffectual order from Queen Anne, in 1708, to enforce 
this decision, nothing was done under it. Both ends of the di- 
visional line were in dispute, and until they were fixed, the exe- 
cution of the orders in council was impracticable and useless. In 
the midst of these and other troubles, harassed by debt and perse- 
cution, his colony mortgaged to money lenders, and half sold to 
Queen Anne, in 1718, William Penn died. His grave is in Eng- 
land, but his monument is in the system of laws upon which he 
founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." Si monumentum 
quceris circumspice. 



8 Penn was here again in 1099-1701, and would doubtless have resumed, perhaps con- 
eummated, the negotiations ; but he had no one to treat with — Lord Baltimore's provinco 
and government being then in the hands of a deputy of William of Orang e,who had 
no love for any abettor of James II., as Penn himself had been made to feel. 

10 This, and Penn's admission to Lord Baltimore, in November, 1682, that his "Royal 
Highness had the one half" of the three lower counties — although Penn had absolute 
deeds from him for them — throws a cloud over the impartiality of that adjudication ; 
and raises a suspicion that favor and interest had more to do with it than the terra 
incuUa pretence upon which it was based. 

" *' With one consent the wise and the learned of all nations have agreed, that, 
as a lawgiver, he was the greatest that ever founded a State, in ancient or modem 

15 



226 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

Penn was almost as unfortunate in his will as in his charter; 
for it too gave rise to contention, as to whom his proprietary estates 
now belonged. After some ten years of doubt, it was finally 
settled that they went to his three sous, John, Thomas and Richard ; 
the last named being a minor until 1732. All that was done rela- 
ting to the strife, during this abeyance, was an agreement with 
Baltimore, by their mother and the mortgagees, in February, 1723, 
to keep the peace for eighteen months. In the meantime, the 
proprietorship of Maryland had descended to Charles Calvert, the 
second of that name, great grandson of the first proprietor. 

A better spirit seems now to have actuated the parties. The 
Protestant succession was firmly fixed on the British throne ; with 
whom, thus far, the Catholic proprietor had met with no more 
favor than from the Stuarts. The growing strifes along the borders 
were expensive, and retarded improvements. Policy, interest, and, 
we suppose, inclination, all called for a compromise ; and as soon 
as Richard Penn was out of his minority, tho call was responded 
to. Having procured from America a map of the localities, re- 
garded as authentic, they, on the 10th of May, 1732, enter iuto a 
long agreement — covering ten or twelve closely written pages, by 
which they provide for the final adjustment of all their disputed 
boundaries. Its most remarkable features are, that it adopts the 
order in council "of 1685, halving the peninsula; and supersedes all 
reference to 40°, or the 40th degree, by resort to fixed land- 
marks. The boundaries provided for by this important agreement, 
hting those which subsist to this day, were to be ascertained as 
follows : 

First. The map of the localities, printed upon the margin 
of the agreement, is that by which it is to be explained and 
understood. Second. Run a circular line at twelve Eiiirlish 
statute miles distance from New Castle, northward and westward. 
Third. Go down to Cape Ilenlopcn, "which lieth south of Cape 
Cornelius,'.' and, from its ocean point, measure a due west line to 
Chesapeake Bay ; find its middle point, and plant a corner there. 



timep. He was not the verj' loremost, but he was among the foremost to Jiyclaim all poivor 
of coercion over the conscience. This aloue, if he had done nothing else, would mark 
the taliuess of bis iutellectual stature. For, when the light of a new truth is dawning 
upon the world, its earliest rays are always shed upon the loftiest minds. * * * 
His name is inscribed upon this mighty Commonwealth. Day by day it rises higher* 
and stands more fiirnly on its broad foundation ; and there it will stand forever — sacred 
to the memory of Willtam J^enn." Judye Black's Address, cited in note 6. 



en. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 227 

Fourth. From said middle point run a line nortliward, up the 
peninsula, so as to be a tangent line to the periphery of the 
circle, at or near its western verge ; and mark the tangent point. 
Fiflh. From said tangent point run a line du.e north until it comes 
to a point fifteen English statute miles south of the latitude of the 
most southern part of the city of Philadelphia, and there plant 
another corner. Sixth. From that fifteen mile point, run a line due 
west, across the Susquehanna, &c., to the utmost longitude of 
Pennsylvania. Seventh. That the red ink lines then drawn upon 
the map indicate the boundaries agreed upon ; and, Eighth. That 
those lines when run and marked shall be the boundaries of the 
parties forever : provided, that if the due north line from the tangent 
point shall cut off a segment of the circle to the west, it shall 
belong to New Castle county. 

The agreement then embodies mutual releases from each party 
to the other, of such portions of their chartered territories as were 
now relinquished, A joint commission to run and mark the lines 
is then provided for; the commissioners to begin their work in 
October, 1732, and complete it by Christmas, 1733. Default in 
continued punctual attendance by those of either party, so as to 
delay its consummation bej^ond the appointed time, was to avoid 
the agreement and work a forfeiture to the other party of £5000. 

Commissioners to run and mark the lines were duly appointed. 
They met at New Castle, and began and ended in fruitless conten- 
tion. Lord Baltimore's commissioners contended that the "twelve 
miles distance," at which the circular line was to run from ISTew 
Castle, meant its periphery, not its radius ; and that the Cape Hen- 
lopen intended was the upper cape, opposite Cape May, the 
agreement to the contrary notwithstanding. Thereupon, the Penn 
commissioners happening to come one day a few minutes behind 
time, the Marylanders declared the penalty forfeited and the 
agreement avoided. "And now," says an excellent Maryland 
writer upon this subject,'^ "Lord Baltimore did what neither 
improved his cause nor bettered his reputation. Treating his own 
deed as a nullity, he asked George II. for a confirmatory grant 
according to the terms of the charter of 1632. It was very properly 
refused, and the parties were referred to the Court of Chancery. 



"John II. B. Latrobe, Esq., of Baltimore, whose lecture npon Mason and Dixon's 
Line, read before tbe Pcimsjlvania Historical Society, November, 1854, ia a model of 
lucid and concise narration, a» well as of eivquent and appropriate comment. 



f 

228 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

And here Lord Hardwicke decided in efi'ect" that the trueHenlopen 
was the point insisted on by the Penus ; that the centre of the 
circle was the middle of Xew Castle, as near as it could be ascer- 
tained; and that the twelve miles were a radius, and not the 
periphery. This was in 1750. Other difficulties now arose. It 
was important to Lord Baltimore, if possible, to shorten the statute 
mile ; and the mode his friends proposed was to measure it on the 
surface of the ground, and not horizontally. So Lord Hardwicke 
was again applied to, and horizontal measurements were ordered. 
This was in March, 1751. Still things were not clear. The shorter 
the line across the peninsula — its beginning on the Delaware side 
being fixed — the better for Lord Baltimore, for the nearer would 
the centre of it be to the ocean. And so here, again, his friends 
came to his aid, and insisted that Slaughter's creek — a channel 
separating Taylor's Island from the Chesapeake, gave the western 
terminus. But the Peuns demanded that the line should be 
continued to the bay shore itself, from which the broad waters of 
the great estuary stretched, unbroken by headland or island, to 
the remote and dim horizon. And again was Lord Hardwicke 
referred to. But, in the mean time, Lord Baltimore died, and the 
euit abated. When it was revived, and the heir [Frederick] of Lord 
Baltimore was made a party, he refused to be bound by the acts of 
his ancestor. If, however, there was any thing that could equal 
the faculties of the Marylanders in making trouble, it was the 
untiring perseverance with which the Penns devoted themselves to 
the contest, and followed their opponents in all their doublings. 
And they had their reward." 

It was in 1735 that the Penns called his refractory lordship before 
the High Chancellor. Sir William Murray, afterwards Lord 
Mansfield, was their counsel. The bill prayed specific perform- 
ance of the agreement of 1732. Baltimore resisted its execution 
on the common ground of weak causes — fraud, and ignorance of 
his rights ; choosing rather to be considered a fool than a knave. 
But the Chancellor reversed his position. 

Pending this tedious judicial controversy, events of stirring 
interest occurred along the border, especially in the Susquehanna 
neighborhood. Lord Baltimore had in 1682-'3, for some purpose, 
run a due east line from about the mouth of Octorora creek to the 



" Perm vs. Lord Baltimore. 1 Veaey, Sr, 444, and supplement. 



en. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 229 

Delaware, which is several miles south of the agreed line." 
Thinking he meant this for his northern limit, Pennsj'lvania 
settlers had crowded down pretty close to that line, especially the 
Nottingham settlement, one of the oldest in Chester county. On 
the other hand, ere the precise import of the agreement of 1732 
was known here, Governor Gordon, of Pennsylvania, had inad- 
vertently given countenance to the idea that, west of the Susque- 
hanna, Maryland was to go up to the true 40°, as compensation for 
the loss of Delaware. But long before this, as early as 1722, Mary- 
landers had begun to "squat " all along up the western shore of that 
river, even far above 40°. In 1730, the famous Col. Thomas Cresap^ 



^* In the map printed on the margin of the agreement of 1732, (see copy prefixed to 
4 Pa. Archives,) the head of Elk is put above New Castle, and the due east and west 
line from the corner, fifteen miles south of Philadelphia, crosses the Susquehanna at the 
mouth of Octorora. And it was proven that Lord Baltimore put that line on the map 
himself in red ink. Blood flowed from the blunder. 

1* The life of this renowned personage is a romance of realities. He was the father of 
Captain Michael Cresap, of Logan's speech celebrity, and elsewhere noticed in these 
sketches. The Colonel was an Englishman — came to this country before Gen. Washington 
was born, but was an acquaintance of the family. Having espoused the quarrel of 
Lord Baltimore with the Penus, he became its champion on the Susquehanna frontier. 
After the temporai-y line was run, in 1739, he had to leave. Being an Indian trader, 
he transferred his establishment within the confines of Maryland, where he failed in 
business. Thereupon he removed to Skipton, now called Old Town, on the Maryland 
shore of the Potomac, nearly opposite the junction of the North and South branches. 
Here Washington was his guest in March, 1748, when out surveying for Lord Fairfax. 
He acquired a large landed estate here and on the South branch. He was one of the 
old Ohio Company, and the commissioner for locating Nemacolin's road, from Wills' 
creek to the Ohio river. We find him at Skipton, in 1750, largely in the Indian trade; 
and, true to hi* hate of the Pennites, seeking to excite against them the enmity of the 
Indians. To this end he sent them messages that the Pennsylvania traders always 
cheated them in all their dealings ; and taking pity on them, he intended to use them 
better, and would sell them goods at less than cost, viz : " A match coat for a buck ; a 
strowd for a buck and a doe ; a pair of stockings for two raccoons ; twelve bars of lead 
for a buck," &c. This story we have on the authority of Barnaby Curran, "a hired 
man of Mr. Parker's," and one of Washington's " servitors " in his mission to the French 
posts on the Allegheny, in 1753. Col. Cresap was a contractor for army supplies to 
Gen. Braddock, and was much censured for tardiness and selling musty flour. In the 
perilous times which ensued upon the defeat of that General, Cresap was generous, 
brave and energetic in his contributions, to the frontier defence. He made a fort of his 
house by stockading it ; raised and equipped a company, commanded by his son Thomas, 
and kept up the struggle to the last. He mixed himself up in the disputes between 
Lord Ffiiiuix and Lord Baltimore, concerning the western boundary of Maryland; 
making a mnp of the localities, which is yet extant. Ever ready to annoy Pennsylvania, 
he lent all his influence in favor of Virginia in the boundary controversy of 1770-74, 
as we will see in the next chapter. The last we hear of him is in January, 1775, as one 
of a Virginia committee to raise arms and supplies wherewith to begin the battles 



230 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [oH. VIII. 

took a position at the " Blue Eock " ferry, west of the Susquehanna, 
a little below Wrightsville, where he, for many years, was the head 
and front of the Maryland incursions and resistance. He became 
the right arm of Lord Baltimore and Governor Ogle in that 
quarter. lie was licensed ferryman, surveyor, captain of the 
militia, &c. He built a fort, in and around which congregated 
some of the worst of " border ruffians." It was to counteract these 
encroachments that the manor of Springettsbury, in York county, 
of ten by twelve miles, beginning over against the mouth of 
Conestoga, was surveyed in 1722, giving birth to a dubious class of 
titles not yet wholly quieted. Many of the German palatines, 
which about this period flocked to Pennsylvania in hundreds, settled 
upon these lands. The Marylanders wheedled them to attorn to 
Lord Baltimore. Some complied ; but, when they saw the trick, 
resumed their first allegiance. This incensed the Marylanders. 
They drove them ofi^ by armed force; and, under well guarded 
bands of surveyors, gave their lands to others. The Marylanders 
denominated the Pennites " quaking cowards ;" and these retaliated 
by calling their assailants "hominy gentry." All sorts of outrages 
were perpetrated. Even the softer sex became furies in the strife. 
The deadly rifle told its aim on man and beast. The solemnities 
of sepulture became occasions for revenge ; and rapine gloated in 
arrests and imprisonments. Fortunately for the peace of the two 
provinces. Governor Thomas Penn was at the helm in person. His 
policy was patience, under a confident hope of triumph in the 
august tribunal to which he and his brothers had appealed. Once 
only did he resort to magisterial redress. In a crisis of the conflict 
it became necessary to arrest Cresap on a charge of murder. The 
sherifi' of Lancaster accomplished it by an armed posse, after firing 
his castle over his head. And while on his way to prison at Phila- 
delphia, when in sight of the infant city, this compeer of Rob 
Roy Macgregor^*^ said to his bailiffs, " This is a pretty Mari/Iand 
town. I have been a troublesome fellow ; but in this last affair I 
have done a notable job. For I have made a present of two 



of the American Revolution. His hospitality was as unlimited as was bis resolute- 
ness and hatred of Pennsylvania. Hence the Indians called him the Big Spoon. 
We gather these particulars from various sources, having never seen the narratives of 
his relative, John J. Jacob, and of Brantz Mayer. 

^^ There is more in this allusion than may strike the reader at first blush ; for Rob 
Roy was flourishing about the same time — maybe a little earlier — in his raids upon the 
dukedom of Montrose. See introduction to Scott's "Rob Roy." 



CH. Vlir.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 231 

provinces to the king ; and if the people find themselves bettered 
by the change, they may thank Tom Cresap for it." The meaning 
of this gasconade is beyond conjecture. Madness measures its 
achievements by the monstrosit}^ of its own excesses. The provin- 
ces were yet safe to their proprietors. 

So rife and rampant had these border feuds become, that, in 
1737, the king and council had to interfere ; and, in 1788, the 
high parties litigant came to an agreement to stay their further 
progress. The expedient was a temporary line. They agreed that, 
until the cause was decided, they would conform their grants and 
pretensions to an east and west line ; which, east of the Susque- 
hanna, should be fifteen miles and a quarter south of the latitude 
of Philadelphia ; and, west of that river, fourteen miles and three 
quarters south of the same latitude. The king ordered these lines to 
be run and marked, and it was done." This was in 1739. The western 
end of the line was the summit of the Cove, or Kittatinny moun- 
tain, near the western limit of Franklin county, then the western 
extreme of the Indian purchase of 1736. This ended the forays. 
Cresap, who had been liberated and thereupon had pitched in 
again, now withdrew. His occupation there was gone. We will 
hear of him again in another quarter. He seems to have been 
"born unto trouble." And yet his love of mischief was no vulgar 
propensity. He sacrificed his own interests to appease his revenge, 
and exorcised personal quarrels that he might bring provinces 
within the circle of his sorcery. 

We left the Lord Chancellor deliberating upon the length of 
the peninsular east and west line ; and whether Frederick, Lord 
Baltimore, was bound by his father's agreement of 1732, or could 
overreach it by holding under deeds of family settlement made by 
more remote ancestors. Happily those deliberations were cut off 
by a compromise. For, on the 4th of July, 1760, the parties agree 
to celebrate their independence of judicial constraint by a new 



1^ See map, in 1 Pa. Arch. 594, 558, &c. It ^was while measuring down these 15J 
miles, from the latitude of South Philadelphia, that the first dispute sprnng up about 
horizontal measurement. The Marylanders insisted upon superficial. Some of the 
Penn surveyors had been over the ground before, and knew that about 20 perches would 
compensate for the diflference. With this knowledge they procured the Maryland com- 
missioners to agree to allow 25 ! So common is it for even honest (?) men, when 
engaged in controversy, to take advantages, which, under other circumstances, they 
■would scorn. This line, west of Susquehanna, was run ex parte — one of the Maryland 
commissioners having to go home, and the other not choosing to go on without him. It 
was, however, fairly run. 



232 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

compact, or agreement, whicli was to end, and did end, all their 
controversies. The claims of the Penns were yielded to in every 
particular. The agreement of that date is an embodiment of 
the history of the dispute, and is a model of old fashioned 
artistic conveyancing, covering thirty-four closely printed octavo 
pages.^^ Substantially, it is but a recital of the old compromise of 
1732, and of the events which bad since occurred ; and a full and 
absolute contirmation of that agreement, and assent to the judicial 
constructions which almost every part of it had received. Among 
its new provisions were stipulations by the parties respectively, 
that the Penns should confirm the titles of Lord Baltimore's 
grantees to lands east of the Susquehanna, any where north of the 
agreed line (fifteen miles south of the latitude of the southern 
limit of Philadelphia), but that loest of that river such contirmation 
should extend only to lands Vv'ithin a quarter of a mile north of 
that line. On the other hand. Lord Baltimore was to confirm 
Penn's grants west of the Susquehanna, and south of the line 
indefinitely; but, east of tliat river, only to the extent of one 
quarter of a mile south of the agreed line ; provided, in all cases, 
the lands were then (July 4, 1760,) in the " actual possession and 
occupation" of the grantees. This feature of the agreement has 
given rise to some litigation along the border.'^ The reader will 
remember that the temporary line of 1737-'9 had an ofl'set of half 
a mile to the northward, at the Susquehanna; wherefore, is not 
disclosed. The agreement then provides for a speedy joint com- 
mission to determine, run out and mark all the lines between the 
parties, without let or hindrance; that the agreement itself shall 
be acknowledged and enrolled in chancery, and thereupon be 
humbly submitted to his Majesty in council, for his gracious 
allowance and approval. This done, the proprietories are at peace. 
Frederick, Lord Baltimore, goes upon a "tour to the east;" and 



'8 It is the first document in 4 Pennsylvania Archives. 

^^ See the Pennsylvania case of Sdgera vs. Thomas, 5 Barr, 480; and again, in 11 
Harris, 867, -which originated in Fulton county, near Hancock, Maryland. The contest 
was between an old Maryland grant and sui'vey, and a much younger Pennsylvania war- 
rant, &c. In the first report of the case, the Jlaryland title prevailed, owing to an 
in perfect knowledge of the history of this dispute and of the agreement of 1760. In 
the meantime the publication, by Pennsylvania, of her Colonial Ptecords and Archives, 
disclosed all the details of the strife, and the agreement itself. Eventually the Penn- 
sylvania title triumphed. Judge Lowrie, in delivering the opinion of the court in the 
last case, inadvertently says the disputed territory was only half a mile wide. This is 
an error. It had a width of more than twenty miles. 



en. VIII.] MASON 4ND dixon's line. 233 

tlie Penns remain in London to protect their private and provincial 
interests. 

Before we proceed to run and mark the lines, let us pause a 
moment to take an account of the loss and gain of the parties, in 
the results of this long and perplexing controversy. Was the 
agreement of 1760, and its prototype of 1732, a compromise — a 
mutual concession of conflicting pretensions ; or was it wholly a 
surrender by one party to the other? 

Maryland lost what is now the State of Delaware, that is cer- 
tain ; and, as we think, she was thereby unjustly shorn of her fair 
proportions. But that Calvert's loss was Penn's gain, is not so 
certain. He sought "water," but obtained gall — the bitterness of 
strife. He asked an outlet to the ocean for his "too backward 
lying province," and there was opened unto him and his sons an 
inlet to a sea of troubles. He purchased the Duke's appanage to 
"New York, to make it an appendage to Pennsylvania ; but, ere his 
title to it was settled, it set up for itself; and when the American 
colonies broke the bands of British dependence, it too became an 
independent State.^° And so Delaware was lost to Pennsylvania. 
The judicious Scottish historian of our early settlements, already 
quoted, regards the loss of Delaware to Lord Baltimore as a 
retribution for his encroachment upon Virginia. May not the 
same punitive Providence be again traced in its ultimate severance 
from a State, all whose other foundations were in righteousness 
and peace ? 

"We have before said that the consequence to Lord Baltimore, 
of the misplacement of the fortieth line of north latitude, in the 
maps of the Chesapeake and Delaware region, current at the date 



20 From 1682 to 1691, Delaware was, for all practical purposes, a part of Pennsyl- 
vania, each having the same charters of privileges, the same general laws, the same 
Governor and Assembly — in which each was equally represented ; each having three 
counties — New Castle, Kent and Sussex, and Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester. In 1691, 
when Penn came under the ban of King William, Delaware affected to become jealous 
of Pennsylvania ; and, although uniting in the same Assembly, had a separate Governor. 
In 1704, she set up a separate Assembly, under the same Governor. From 1755 to the 
Revolution, in 1776, she had both a separate Governor and Assembly ; and in '76, 
became a State. She was always an undutiful child to the Penns ; and had she only 
thought 80, would no doubt have been as well cared for by Maryland — to which she 
naturally and rightfully belongs — as she ever was by the Penns, or by herself. But, 
one member and two Senators, in Congress, are no mean privileges, to a representative 
population — free and slave, of 91,000, when the ratio for one ilcpreseutative is 93,420 I 
But who complains ? She has given us some great men, and maj/ yet become the 
balance wheel of the Confederacy. 



234 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

of his charter, was, to have the northern confines of his province 
considerably restricted. Had the calls of his patent been fully 
answered, the Quaker City would inevitably have become, what 
Cresap called it, a "pretty Maryland town." On the other hand, 
had his lordship been forced down fully to the line 40°, as it stood 
in 1632, and, indeed, until his and Markham's discovery in 1682, 
Maryland would have been cut in twain in the region of Hancock, 
and Western Maryland would have lain so far "backward" as to 
be wholly inaccessible to its proprietor by either land or "water." 
If Penn had the advantage of Calvert in the misplaced position of 
40° in 1632, the latter had an available set-off in the requirement of 
Penn's patent of 1681, that the circular part of his boundary 
should reach the '■'■beginning of the fortieth degree," by a north- 
ward and westward course. Here, then, was a most inviting call to 
compromise, which would doubtless have been much sooner 
responded to, had it not been for the successive disabilities, of 
Lord Baltimore's privation of his province by William and Mary, 
from 1692 to 1716, Penn's death in 1715, and the disputes as to 
his successors in the proprietorship, and the minority of one of 
them, until 1732. In this year, as we have seen, a compromise was 
agreed upon, which relieved both parties. Philadelphia was kept 
at the neighborly distance of fifteen miles from Maryland ; and 
Lord Baltimore preserved a lane, of about a mile wide, at Hancock, 
for access to his iron and coal fields — then unknown and value- 
less — in the west. By this agreement, therefore, Maryland gave 
up not only her Delaware domain north of Henlopen — which was 
in effect taken from her by the royal order in council of 1685 — 
but also a parallelogram of about nineteen and a quarter miles 
wide on her northern confines, extending from ISTew Castle county 
to the "meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac." This 
alone exceeds one-third of her entire present area, territorial and 
aqueous. With Delaware added, it exceeds one-half. So Mary- 
land has been largely the loser in this game of boundary. She is, 
however, quite a respectable sovereignty yet. 

But how has Pennsylvania fared in the play upon 40° ? Evidently 
she has gained the parallelogram which Maryland lost; thereby 
restricting Lord Baltimore's two degrees of latitude to about sixty 
miles each, — "geographical," instead of "statute" degrees, as 
Penn wanted them to be in 1682. But she has also widened her 
own two degrees to about seventy-nine miles each. For in the 
adjustment of her northern boundary with jSTew York, in 1774, 
and again in 1785, the true 42° — the "beginning of the forty third 



en. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 235 

degree," was adopted ; without any effort on the part of our 
northern neighbor to push us down to where that line of latitude 
was put in 1G81 — if indeed it had any location at that period. No 
hint was given or taken of the old misplacement of 40° ; and thus 
Pennsylvania was allowed to hold, on the north, by the rule which 
Maryland sought in vain to enforce against her on the south. The 
value of this item of fortunate territorial expansion by Pennsyl- 
vania, is greatly enhanced by the access to Lake Erie which was 
thereby obtained. But for this, the Erie triaugle^^ would probably 
never have been a purchasable annexation to our chartered ter- 
ritory. Thus far, therefore, Pennsylvania has been largely the 
gainer by her boundary troubles. The loss of Delaware has been 
more than compensated. In our next chapter, we will see that her 
good fortune, or superior diplomacy, attended her to the last. To 
one, or both, of these influences do we of much of south-western 
Pennsylvania owe it that we are not now Marylanders or Vir- 
ginians. 

Although not within the scope of these sketches, we are tempted 
here briefly to notice the boundary controversy with Connecticut, 
which Pennsylvania had to sustain from 1760 to 1782.^^ It inter- 
vened to postpone the settlement of our northern limits for more 
than ten years from the time it was undertaken, in 1774, and until 
rival colonies had become changed to fraternal States. 

The grant of Connecticut to Lords Say and Seal, and others, in 



21 The Erie triangle was -within the chartered limits of Massachusetts, which claimed 
three-quarters of a degree of New York, immediately north of 42°. New York held it, 
we believe, under a purchase from, and alliance with, the Six Nations of Indians. 
Both having ceded their western territory to the United States — New York in 1782, and 
Massachusetts in 1784 — the relative strength of their titles became an unimportant 
inquiry. The New York cession was of all west of a due north line from the northern 
boundary of Pennsylvania, through the extreme west end of Lake Ontario, or twenty 
miles west of Niagara river, to north latitude 45° — thus taking in a considerable portion 
of Canada, to which her title proved rather unavailable. Pennsylvania first bought the 
triangle from the Indians, in 1789, for $1200, and then in 1792 from the United States 
for $151,640.25, continental certificates. This was done to get at the harbor of 
Presq'isle, at Erie, upon which the United States have since expended more than they 
got for it. The triangle contains 202,187 acres. See its history by Judge Huston in 
M'Call vs. Coover, 4 Watts and Sergeant's Reports, 151-164; and see 1 Olden 
Time, 557. 

2^ The controversy lasted much longer in litigation and legislation, but this year ended 
the boundary part of it. See Huston's Land Titles, 14 ; 4 Journals of Congress, (1782) 
129-140; i Pennsylvania Archives, 679, &c., and other volumes, and Colonial Records, 
passim — indexed — Contiecticut and Wyoming ; Day's Historical Collections of Pennsyl- 
vania, " Luzerne County," and authors there referred to. 



236 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

1631, b}^ the 'New England Company, reached from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, or "South Sea;" but, like itsparentgrant, there was 
excepted out of it any territory then in possession of any other 
Christian prince or State. This let in New York and New Jer- 
sey between her present western limits and the Delaware. So it 
was determined by a Board of King's Commissioners, in October, 
1661. But Connecticut reserved her claims west of the Delaware, 
thereby covering nearly all the forty-second, or most northern 
degree of latitude, which is within the subsequently chartered 
limits of Pennsj'lvania, and extending westward indefinitely.^ 
It is said that, when Penn's grant was pending, he had notice of 
this claim of Connecticut, but that the king and he gave no heed 
to it, upon the ground that eighty years of neglect to people or pos- 
sess it, was to be considered as an abandonment. About 1753 
Connecticut began to reassert her claim, and sent settlers into the 
"Wyoming valley. "Within the ensuing twenty years the Connec- 
ticut settlements upon the east, or north branch of the Susque- 
hanna, became numerous and formidable. Their descendants and 
enterprise are there yet. Pennsylvania regarded these intrusions 
upon her territory with a jealous and angry eye. Conflicts ensued, 
personal, military, legal and judicial. Blood and treasure were 
freely expended. Our later colonial and early State annals, as 
well as our law books, are full of the controversy. At length, in 
1782, under the old articles of confederation, the dispute was 
referred for settlement to a committee of Congress, who sat as a 
court at Trenton, New Jersey, in the fall of that year. The parties 
were fully heard by their proofs and counsel. Connecticut relied 
upon her ancient parchments. Pennsylvania planted herself upon 
the laches of Connecticut, upon her own charter of 1681, and upon 
a score or more of Indian deeds to the Penns.^* It was contended 
that the royal grants gave but a pre-emption right; that the natives 
were the true proprietors ; and, as the Penns had the Indian titles, 



^ Connecticut, in 1786, ceded all her western territory, north of 41°, and west of a 
due north line, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of Pennsyl- 
vania, to the United States. Her "Western Reserve," in the north-east corner of 
Ohio, was the one hundred and twenty miles westward of Pennsylvania, north of 41° 
nearly. In 1800, the United States offered to give her the soil, or the proceeds of sales, 
of this Reserve, she surrendering ih.Q jurisdiction, which was agreed to. 

2* Connecticut had an Indian deed, also, obtained by one Lydius at Albany, in 1754 ; 
but it was pronounced surreptitious, illegal and fraudulent. It does not appear that it 
was relied on at the trial. 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 237 

to which the commonwealth had succeeded, — by tacking the^e to 
the charter, the old abandoned pre-emption grant to Connecticut was 
'' crushed out." The court so held. Its decision was unanimous in 
favor of Pennsylvania — the ever successful Pennsylvania, in all her 
boundary controversies. The way was now clear to fix and run a 
definitive line between Pennsylvania and New York ; and it was 
done, in 1785-'6-'7, upon the line of north latitude 42°. "We return 
now, from this digression, to run our lines with Maryland. 

Eight years of almost uninterrupted labor were expended in 
running, measuring and marking these troublesome lines; and 
even then our line was left unfinished. For, except around New 
Castle, and thence to the Susquehanna, the territories they traversed 
were dense forests, deep swamps and water courses, or rugged 
mountains; inhabited only by venonfous reptiles and beasts of 
prey, with here and there the adventurous pioneer and roving 
Indian. Nor was geometrical science then the perfection that it 
now is. Its progress, if not so noisy as has been the march of 
material improvement over these then dreary wastes, has been not 
the less sure and surpassing. In those days accuracy was a rare 
achievement; and, when its closest possible approximation was 
demanded, much time and experiment had to be disbursed. The 
delays were, therefore, wrought by real difficulties. 

The commissioners on the part of each province having been 
duly appointed, and their surveyors selected, they met at New 
Castle, in November, 1760, and addressed themselves to their task 
in earnest. They worked with unwonted harmony. Indeed, so 
specific, upon every department of their labors, had been the 
decrees and agreements, that there was no longer even a loop hole 
through which either party could evade compliance. All that 
remained was to measure and mark the lines, as commanded. The 
commissioners were seven for each proprietary,''^ three of whom 
together were competent to act. The Penn surveyors at first 



^ On the part of the Penns they were Governor James Hamilton, Richard Peters, mem- 
ber and Secretary of Council ; I^eu John Ewing, D. D., afterwnrds Provost of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania; William Allen, Qh\eX iwatice ; Wm. Coleman, then a Justice; 
Thomas Willing, afterwards a Justice, and Benjamin Chew, afterwards Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court. Edward Shippen, Jr., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court, was also 
a member of the Board part of the time. The Maryland gentlemen were Governor 
Horatio Sharpe, J. Ridout, Jno. Leeds, Juo. Barclay, Geo. Stewart, Dan. of St. Thos. 
Jenifer, and J. Beale Boardley. Tiie commissioners seem to have entrusted the line, 
west of the Susquehanna, entirely to the surveyors. 



238 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII 

chosen were John Lukens,^ afterwards Surveyor General of the 
Commonwealth, and Archibald M'Clean, of York, eldest brother 
of the late Col. Alexander M'Clean, of Fayette. Two others were 
named, but never acted. Those of Maryland were John F. A. 
Priggs and Jonathan Hall. 

The peninsular line, from IlenlopeTi to the Chesapeake, was the 
only one which had been run under Lord Ilardwicke's decree of 
1750. This had been agreed to be correctly run and measured, 
and its middle point fixed at thirty-four miles three hundred and 
nine perches.^' It had also been agreed that the court house in 
New Castle should be the centre of the circle. Upon these data 
the surveyors proceed. N^umerous "vistas" had to be cleared 
through the forests and morasses of the peninsula. Three years 
were diligently devoted to finding the bearing of the western line 
of DeUiware, so as to make it a tangent to the circle, at the end of 
a twelve mile radius ; and a close approximation only was then 
attained. The instruments and appliances employed seem to have 
been those commonly used by surveyors. 

TliC proprietors, residing in or near London, grew weary of this 
slow progress, which, perhaps, they &et down to the incompetency 
of their artists. To this groundless suspicion we owe their super- 
sedure, and the introduction of the men, Mason and Dixon, who, 
unwittingly, have immortalized their memory in the name of the 
principal line which had yet to be run. 
r Jeremiah Mason and Charles Dixon'^* were astronomers of rising 



^ We believe that Mr. Lutens, who was an excellent officer, died in October, 1789, in 
Washington county, Pennsylvania; where, and in Beaver county, his descendants are 
yet found. He was the first Surveyor General of the Commonwealth, from April, 1781, 
to his death. Col. Daniel Brodhead succeeded him. 

2' The length of the west boundary of Delaware, from the middle point to the tangent 
point on the circle, is eighty-two miles, minus six and one-eighth perches. 

^8 Mason had been an assistant in the Royal Observatury, at Greenwich. Both, prior 
to their service in America, it is said, had been at the Cape of Good Hope to make 
observations of an eclipse of the sun. It is certain they were there in IT'jy, to observe 
a transit of Venus across the sun's disc. Dixon is said to have been born in a coal pit. 
He died at Durham, in England, i i 1777. Mason died near Philadelphia, in 1787. He 
was probably the more scientific man of the two. From a careful study of their chi- 
rography and signatures, Mr. Latrobe infers that '* Mason was a cool, deliberate, pr.ins- 
taking man, never in a hurry ;" and that Dixon " was a younger and more active man, a 
man of an impatient spirit and nervous temperament ; just such a man as worked best 
•with a sober sided colleague." Their journal and letters, with a m<i.p of the lines, are 
preserved in manuscript at Annapolis. " Their letters are the merest business letters: 
their journal is the moat naked of records." The Archives of Pennsylvania contain no 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON'S LINE. 239 

celebrity in London, in 1763. In August of that year they were 
employed by the Pcnns and Lord Baltimoreiocomplete their lines. 
Furnished with instructions and the most approved instruments, 
among them a four feet zenith sector, they sail for Philadelphia, 
where they arrive in November. They go to work at once.^ They 
adopt the radius as measured by their predecessors ; and, after 
numerous tracings of the tangent line, adopt also their tangent 
point, from which they say they could not make the tangent line 
pass one inch to the eastward or westward. So that if the proprie- 
tors had only thought so, the rude sightings and chainings of the 
American surveyors would have been all right. They thereupon 
cause that line and point to be marked, and adjourn to Philadel- 
phia to find its southern limit, on Cedar, or South street. This 
they make to be^ north latitude 39^ 56' 29". They then proceed 
to extend that latitude sufficiently far to the west to be due north 
of tlie tangent point. Thence they measure down south fifteen 
miles to the latitude of the great due west line, and run its paral- 
lel for a short distance. Then they go to the tangent point, and 
run due north to that latitude; and at the point of intersection, 
in a deep ravine, near a spring, they cause to be planted the corner 
stone at which begins the celebrated " Mason and Dixon's Line." 
Having ascertained the latitude of this line to be 39° 43' a2'V' 
they, under instructions, run its parallel to the Susquehanna — 
twenty-three miles; and, having verified the latitude there, they 
return to the tangent point, from which they run the due north line 
to the fifteen mile corner, and that part of the circle which it cuts 
ofit" to the west, and which by the agreements, was to go to New 
Castle county.^^ Where it cuts the circle is the corner of three 



counterpart of these. Even the agreement of 1760 has been lost. Certified copies hare 
supplied the place of it and many others of our old colonial piipers. It is said that 
Joseph Shippeu, Secretary to the Pean Governors, refused to give them up at the Revo- 
lution. Some have been recovered from his papers, and other sources. Those of Mary- 
land and New York have been better taken care of. The original agreement of 1732 is 
nowhere to be found. 

'■^Tlinir first care Avas to have an ohservalory erected on Cedar street, Philadelphia, to 
facilitate the ai^certaiument of its latitude. It was the first building in America erected 
purposely from which "to read the skies." It was rude and hastily constructed, for 
they used it in .January, 1764. 

s9The latitude of Philadelphia, at the State House, is 39° 56' 59'^ 

31 More accurate observations make it 39° 43-' 26.3 — consequently it is a little over 
liinoteeu miles south of 40°, as now located. 

^' This little bow, or arc, is about a mile and a half long, and its middle width 116 
feet, from its upper end, where the three States join, to the fifteen mile point, where 



240 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

dominions — an important point ; and, therefore, they cause it to 
be well ascertained and well marked. This brings them to the 
end of 1764. 

They resume their labors upon the line in June, 1765. If to 
extend this parallel did not require so great skill as did the nice 
adjustments of the other lines and intersections, it summoned its 
performers to greater endurance. A tented army penetrates the 
forests, but their purposes are peaceful, and they move merrily. 
Besides the surveyors and their assistants, the Messrs. M' Clean — 
Archibald, Moses, Alcxander^^ and Samuel, and others, there had 
to be chain-bearers, rod-men, axe-men, commissaries, cooks and 
baggage carriers, with numerous servants and laborers, men of all 
work and camp followers of no work. Tiy the 27th of October, 
they come to the North (Cove, or Kittatinny) mountain, 95 miles 
from the Susquehanna, and where the temporary line of 1739 ter- 
minated. Alter taking Captain Shelby with them to its summit, 
"to show them the course of the Potomac," and point out the 
Allegheny mountain,^^ the surveyors and their attendants return 
to the settlements to pass the winter, and to get their appoint- 
ment renewed. 

Early in 1766, they are again at their posts. They begin with 
an exhausted money chest, and having ascertained that the Penus 
had advanced £615 more than Lord Baltimore, they send to Gov- 
ernor Sharpe, at Annapolis, for X600 or <£700, to be forwarded, 
"so that Mr. M'Lane may receive it at Fredericktown," the 24th 
of April. This obtained, they proceed. By the 4th of June, they 
are on the top of Little Allegheny mountain — the first west of 
"Wills' creek. They have now carried the line about 160 miles 
from its beginning. The Indians, into whose uugranted territory 
they had deeply penetrated, grow restive and threatening. They 

the great Mason and Dixon's line begins, is a little over three and a half miles ; and 
from the fil'teen mile corner due east to the circle, is a little over three-quarters of a 
mile — room enough for three or four good Chester county farms. This was the only 
part of the circle which Mason and Dixou run — Lord Baltimore having no couceru in 
the residue. Penn had it run and marked with "four good notches," by "friends Isaac 
Taylor and Thomas Pierson," in 1700-'! ; but the trees are now nearly all gone, and it 
is hard to tind. 

" See memoir of Colonel Alexander M'Clean, ante — Chap. VII. page 132. 

»♦ From this summit, the path of the Potomac through the mountains, to the south- 
west, is distinctly visible ; and the Allegheny crest — Big Savage — can be well seen. Old 
Fort Frederick, too, comes in for its share of the magnificent panorama It was built 
in 1766, and its ruins are yet in good preservation, a little east of Uancock. 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXOn's LINE. 241 

thought this array, though bannerless, meant something. Their 
untutored minds could not comprehend this nightly gazing at the 
stars through gun-like instruments, and this daily felling of the 
forests across their hunting paths. They forbid any further 
advance, and they had to be obeyed. The artists return leisurely, 
and note, as they pass, the beauty of their " visto," which, they 
say, " from any eminence on the line, where fifteen or twenty 
miles can be seen, very apparently shows itself to be a parallel of 
latitude." They are pleased with their work. 

The agents of the Proprietors now find that there are other 
lords of the soil whose favor must be propitiated. The Indians 
just at this time were deeply exercised upon some unsettled 
boundary questions between them and the whites, and were keenly 
sensitive to any anticipatory demarcations. The Six Nations, whose 
council fires blazed upon the Onondago and Mohawk, in Western New 
York, were the lords paramount of the territory yet to be traversed. 
To obtain their consent to the consummation of the line, the Governors 
of Pennsylvaaia and Maryland, in the winter of 1766-'7, at an expense 
of more than £500, procured, under the agency of Sir William Johnson, 
a grand convocation of the tribes of that powerful confederacy. The 
application was successful ; and early in June, 1767, an escort of four- 
teen stroud-clad warriors, with an interpreter and a chief, deputed by 
the Iroquois council, met the surveyors and their camp at the summit 
of the Great Allegheny, to escort them down into the valley of the 
Ohio, whose tributaries they were soon to cross. 

Safety being thus secured, the extension of the line was pushed on 
vigorously in the summer of 1767. Soon the motley host of red and 
white men, led by the London surveyors, come to the western limit of 
Maryland — " the meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac ;" and 
why they did not stop there is a mystery, for there their functions ter- 
minated.^* But they pass it by unheeded, because unknown, resolved 
to reach the utmost limit of Peun's " five degrees of longitude" from 

35 There is some evidence tbat when Penn asked for his grant, he intended it to go no further 
west than Maryland. It is the only one of the old royal grants which is limited by longitude. 
Its introduction was, perhaps, accidental, to square with his application for^ve degrees of lat- 
itude. He could as readily have had it to reach to the Pacific. 

The general south-westward bearing of the Appalachian ranges of mountains, may well have 
led the most knowing ones of that day to "guess" that " the meridian of the first fountain 
of the Potomac" might be much further west than it is. The prospect from the North moun- 
tain was very illusive. And yet one can hardly believe they would suppose that meridian to be 
west of the Monongahela, and within fifteen miles of the Ohio. 

In ^letter from Governor JTeit/f, of Pennsylvania, to Governor Spotsivood, of Virginia, dated 



242 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

the Delaware ; for so were they instructed. By the 24th of August, 
they come to the crossing of Braddock's road. The escort now become 
restless. The Mohawk chief and his nephew leave. The Shawnees 
and Delawares, tenants of the hunting grounds, begin to grow terrific. 
On the 27th September, when encamped on the Monongahela, 233 
miles from the Delaware, twenty-six of the laborers desert, and but 
fifteen axe-men are left. Being so near the goal, the surveyors — for 
none of the commissioners were with them — evince their courage by 
coolly sending -back to Fort Cumberland for aid, and in the meantime 
they push on. At length they come to where the line crosses the 
Warrior branch of the old Catawba war path,^* at the second crossing 
of Dunkard creek, a little west of Mount Morris, in Greene ; and there 
the Indian escort say to them, "that they were instructed by their 
chiefs in council not to let the line be run to the westward of that war 
path." Their commands are peremptory ; and there, for fifteen years, 
the line is stayed. It was afterwards run out by other hands, as noted 
elsewhere in these sketches." When completed, its terminus is a 
" cairn" of stones, on one of the slopes of the Fish creek hills, near 
the Broad Tree tunnel of the Baltimore and Ohio rail road. "And, 
standing on the cairn, and looking to the east and north, a fresher 
growth of trees indicates the ranges of the vistas. But climb the 
highest tree adjacent to the cairn, that you may note the highest moun- 
tain within the range of vision, and then ascending its summit, take in 
the whole horizon, and seek for a single home of a single descendant of 
the sylvan monarchs, whose war i)ath limited the surveys, and you will 
seek in vain. But go back to the cairn, and listen there, in the quiet 
of the woods, and a roll as of distant thunder will come unto the ear, 
and a shrill shriek will pierce it, as the monster and the miracle of 
modern ingenuity — excluded from Pennsylvania as effectually by the 
line we have described, as the surveyors of old were by the Indian war 
path — rushes round the south-western angle of the State, on its way 



April, (1721,) he says—" You very well know, sir, that Pennsylvania, which is three degrees in 
breadth (?) and extends live degrees west of the river Delaware, must border upon his 
Majesty's dominion of Virginia to the westward of Maryland, and upon New York to the north- 
ward of New Jersey." This is the only avowed knowledge we have, prior to 1768, of Pennsyl- 
vania extending farther west than Maryland. 

36 See ante—" Indian Trails, &c."— Chap. III. 

37 See memoir of Col. Alexander M'Clean— an<e, Chap. VII. ; and "Boundary Controversy," 
postea, Chap. IX. 



CH. VIII.] MASON AND DIXON's LINE. 243 

from the city which perpetuates the title of the Lord Proprietary of 
Maryland, to find a breathing place on the Ohio, in the 'pan-handle' 
of Virginia. "^^ 

Mason and Dixon, with their pack-horse train . and attendants," 
return to the east without molestation, and report their discomfiture to 
the " gentlemen commissioners," who approve their conduct, and, on 
the 27th December, 1767, grant to them an honorable discharge, but 
agree to pay them for a map or plan of their work, which they were 
instructed to prepare, and did prepare. The commissioners now 
address themselves to the erection of the required monuments, or 
stones, upon the lines, and at the corners and intersections around and 
near the "three counties" of Delaware. This done, they, on the 9th 
November, 1768, make their final report to the Proprietaries ; and here 
the labor upon these lines ends, in America, until after the titles of 
Baltimore and the Peuns are wrested from them by the strong arm of 
revolution. 

In conformity to the agreements and the decree of the Chancellor, 
the lines were well marked. All the corners and intersections were 
ascertained by firmly fixing thereat "one or more remarkable stones," 
on which were graven the arms of the proprietors on the sides facing 
their possessions respectively. Along the lines, at the end of every 
fifth mile, a stone thus graven was planted, the intermediate miles being 
noted by a stone having M. on one side and P. on the other. Most of 
the stones on which the coats of arms were graven were brought from 
England. On the great due west line — Mason and Dixon's line proper, 
this mode of demarcation was used as far as the eastern base of Sideling 
Hill mountain, 132 miles from the spring corner. But the difficulty 
of transporting the graven stones any further westward, compelled the 
surveyors to depart from the agreement, and to find their marks as they 
went along — no very difficult matter. From Sideling Hill to the 
Great Allegheny summit, they denoted the line by conical heaps of 
earth or stones, six or seven feet high, on the tops of all the ridges and 
mountains. From the summit of the Allegheny westward, as far as 



38 Mr. Latrobe's lecture, before quoted. See ante, note 12. 

39 Among these, besides the Messrs. M'Clean, were Hugh Crawford, the old Indian trader, 
who, for his services, got a grant of part of Col. Evans' estate, {ante. Chap. VI. note 12,) and 
Paul Larsh, of George's creek, father of Hannah, the wife of Joseph Baker, of Nicholson 
township, who was the widow of George Gans. See Larsh vs. Larsh, Addison's Keports, 310. 
Old John Tate, of Bedstone, is said also to have been of the company. 



244 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

they went, similar marks were erected at the end of every mile, with a 
post inserted in each. 

The " visto" of the line was opened twenty-four feet wide, by felling 
all the trees and large bushes, which were left to rot upon the ground. 
The monuments of the line were erected along the middle of this path- 
way, in the true parallel. 

The instruments used by Mason and Dixon were an ordinary sur- 
veyor's compass, to find their bearings generally, a quadrant, and the 
four feet zenith sector which they brought from London, for absolute 
accuracy. The ferruginous character of much of the territory they 
traversed, forbid much reliance upon the needle. The sector enabled 
them to be guided by the unerring luminaries of the heavens. 

The measurements were made with a four pole chain of one hundred 
links, except that, on hills and mountains, one of two poles, and some- 
times a one pole measure, was used. These were frequently tested by 
a statute chain carried along for that purpose. Great care was enjoined 
as to the ])lumbings upon uneven ground; and, so far as they have been 
since tested, the measurements seem to have been very true. 

While the surveyors were in progress upon the line, the Proprietors 
humbly besought his Majesty, George III., to allow and approve their 
agreement of 1760, and the confirmatory decree of the Chancellor 
thereon, to the end that his Majesty's subjects inhabiting the disputed 
lands might have their minds quieted. His Majesty deferred his 
approval until January, 1769, after the lines had been completed and 
the final report of the commissioners made. Even all this, however, 
did not quite end the disturbances. Says Governor John Penn, in 
1774 : — " The people living between the ancient temporary line of juris- 
diction, and that lately settled and marked by the commissioners, were 
in a lawless state. Murders, and the most outrageous transgressions of 
law and order, were committed with impunity in those places. In 
vain did persons injured apply to the government of Maryland for 
protection and redress." This, of course, refers to the little strip of a 
quarter of a mile in width along the southern confines of York, Adams 
and Franklin. Thirty years had caused the temporary line to be 
deemed the permanent boundary — the common fate of accommodation 
lines between adjoining land owners. 

Nor was this quite all. In 1771, Frederick, Lord Baltimore, died, 
and his heir was a minor under guardianship. And when, in 1774, 
Governor Penn, under stress of the "lawless state" of his south-western 



CH, VIII.] MASON AND DIXON's LINE. 245 

frontier, made proclamation of his purpose to extend and enforce his 
iurisdiction "quite home" to the established line, his young lordship's 
guardian was induced to ask the king to arrest the Governor's proceed- 
ings, upon the grounds that the Maryland proprietary had not capacity 
to concur in the ratification of the line, and that his subjects settled on 
the frontiers, knowing this, would resort to violence and bloodshed. 
The partisans of Virginia — who were now carrying on her boundary 
war with the Penns — had perhaps more to do with this groundless 
interference than had the friends of the infant Lord Baltimore. When 
the king was apprized that the line had been run, marked, reported 
and confirmed, in pursuance of Frederick's agreement, and all done in 
his lifetime, he "graciously" recalled his countermand of Governor 
Penn's proclamation. And now, finally, and, as we trust forever, 
Maryland and Pennsylvania are at peace. The two oldest and most 
contiguous sovereignties carved out of ancient New England and Vir- 
ginia — the "North" and the "South," resume their primitive peaceful 
repose upon the line — this famous Mason and Dixon's Line — which is 
the agreed substitute for the ancient 40°. 

The width of a degree of longitude varies according to the latitude 
it traverses — expanding towards the equator, and contracting towards 
the pole. In the latitude of our line, Mason and Dixon computed it 
at fifty-three miles and one hundred and sixty-seven and one-tenth 
perches. They consequently made Penn's five degrees of longitude 
from the Delaware to be two hundred and sixty-seven miles and one 
hundred and ninety-five and six-tenth perches.^" To their stopping 
place at the war path on Dunkard, they say, was two hundred and 
forty-four miles one hundred and thirteen perches and seven and one- 
fourth feet. Hence they left, as they computed it, twenty-three miles 
and eighty-three perches to be run. It was subsequently ascertained 
that this was about a mile and a half too much — a discovery which 
created some inconvenience upon the western line of Greeue county. 

We have seen no evidence that Mason and Dixon actually measured 
the distance from the Delaware to where the}' began the due west line 



40 It seems it should have been only two hundred and sixty-six miles ninety-nine and one 
fifth iierches; and so we say it was found to be by the surveyors of 1784, in our note (4) to Mem- 
oir of Col. Alex. M'Clean — ante, Chapter VII. But that is Col. Graham's estimate in 1S19. We 
have not found what it was made to be, in 1784. 

*i See note (4) referred to in note 40, and note 42. 



246 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [CH. VIII. 

at the stone near the spring. But they, or some others for them, must 
have done so, for it is part of the five degrees of longitude. They 
estimated it at fourteen miles forty perches and ten feet. The mile- 
stones upon the line are numbered according to their distance from the 
north-east corner of Maryland — the spring corner — instead of from the 
Delaware. This has created some confusion and misapprehension as to 
the length of the line. Our most aj>proved State map — Barnes', of 
1848 — has them so numbered with great apparent accuracy ; although 
not always coinciding with other notations of distances upon the line." 

The line crosses the Cumberland, or National road, about three miles 
south-east of Petersburg; the Youghiogheny about three miles south of 
Somerfield ; the Cheat at the mouth of Grassy run (the line ford) ; the 
Monongahela near the mouth of Crooked run. 

The north-west corner of Maryland, upon this line, is near the road 
from Haydentown to Selbysport, or Friend's, about half a mile west of 
the intersection of Henry Clay and Wharton townships; being about 
one hundred and ninety-nine miles west of her north-east corner, and 
about fifty-four miles east of the south-west corner of Pennsylvania; 
or, one degree of longitude short of our western confine. 

Very many of the marks and monuments upon the line have been 
removed, or have crumbled down ; and its vista is so much grown up 
as to be hardly distinguishable from the adjacent forests. It should 
be re-traced and re-marked. Except in part of Greene county, all the 
original surveys of lands upon the line were made after it was author- 
itatively fixed. Hence no inconvenience or trouble has yet arisen from 
its partial obliteration. But one of the best securities for peace 
between neighbors is to keep up good division fences. 



42 The surveyors of 1739 made the distance from the Susquehanna to " the top of the most 
western of the Kittochtinny hills," (the North or Cove mountain,) only eighty-eight miles. 
The map shows it to be nearly one hundred. 

The map makes the line cross the Monongahela at about two hundred and nineteen and a 
half, or two hundred and thirty-three and a half, from the Delaware, which accords with 
Mason and Dixon. But our Book of Official Surveys, made in 1786, shows the following mile 
posts east of the river, viz.: the two hundred and twenty-second on the south line of the old 
Samuel Bowen tract; the two hundred and twenty-first about half way in the south line of the 
old Robert Henderson tract; the two hundred and twentieth about the middle of the south 
line of the John M'Farland tract— the Ferry tract. There was then a pile of stones in the line, 
on the river hill, near the south-west corner of the Bowen tract. Col. M'Clean run these 
tracts, and he is presumed to have known the marks. There is error somewhere. The line 
then (1786) bore south 89^ west. 



CH. Vlir.] MASON AND DTXON's LINE. 247 

Some trouble did grow out of a removal of some of the monuments 
upon the eastern parts of the lines. Many years asjo the "remarkable 
stone," which marked the south-west corner of Delaware, was dug up 
in one of the fruitless Searches for the buried treasure of Captain Kidd ; 
and at a later period the stone near the spring, which marks the north- 
east corner of Maryland, having been undermined by floods and fallen, 
was taken by a neighboring farmer for a chimney-piece, and a post 
planted in its place. Surmises sprung up that some others of the 
stones which defined the limits of the little State had been displaced. 
Many of the dwellers around the notch and circle seemed not to know 
to whom they belonged. These doubts and dilapidations induced the 
three States of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, in 1849, to 
create a joint commission to re-trace the lines in that vicinity, and 
replace the missing monuments. The commissioners procured Lieut. 
Col. James D. Graham, of the corps of Topographical Engineers of 
the United States, to execute the work. He, of course, had to review 
much of the labors of Mason and Dixon and their predecessors. 
Generally he found that remarkable accuracy characterized those early 
displays of geometrical science. The post near the spring was in the 
right place, and the courses all right. Some errors were, however, 
detected. Some of the miles had been made a few feet too long. The 
radius was found to be two feet four inches too short; and by some 
errors in locating the tangent point, and the junction of the three States 
at the point of the notch, or bead, it was found that Maryland had got 
back from Delaware a little over one acre and three-quarters of what 
she had lost by King James' order, in 1685. Even these trifling errors 
prove the wonderful certainty of mathematical science. Colonel Gra- 
ham's labors wrought a change in the allegiance of several gentlemen 
residing near the circle, who had hitherto supposed themselves citizens 
of Delaware. A Mr. William Smith, who had been a member of the 
Legislature of that State, was found to be a full half mile within Penn- 
sylvania; which also took in the old Christiana church by a hundred 
yards.*^ 

It is ever thus with all things terrestrial. Men change and are 
changed. Monuments crumble and are removed. Even " a thing of 
beauty is not a joy forever." Decay and renewal are the constant suc- 



« See the carious and learned report of Colonel Graham, with other documents, in Senate 
Journal of Pennsylvania, 1850, vol. 2, page 475. 



248 THE MONONGAHELA OP OLD. [CH. VIII. 

cession of human affairs and human structures. The marks of boundary 
cannot escape this destiny. No art, no care, can preserve them as they 
were. The limits of empire which nature establishes are not unvary- 
ing. Rivers change their channels — the soil of one State becomes the 
delta of another — and ocean takes away from continents, to be compen- 
sated by new islands in the watery waste. An assurance of permanency, 
and of enduring peace upon its borders, may be derived from the 
purely arbitrary origin of our Line — that in its establishment Nature 
had no agency ; for 

'"Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
Make enemies of nations, who had else, 
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one." 

To compreliGiul the subjtH^t of this sketch, we have had to course over 
more than three centuries of this world's history, halting here and 
there to gather up and arrange the events which relate to it. It is 
more than two hundred years since the seeds of the strife were sown, 
of which the Line is the harvest; and nearly a century has run since 
the surveyors were running its thread through the forests. Within 
those periods what great events have transpired. Civilization, science, 
freedom, religion and population have rolled their resistless tides over 
this continent. Empires have risen and fallen ; dynasties have sunk 
into nothingness. Yet this Line stands; and its story increases in 
interest as time grows older. Nor is its history yet ended. God 
grant that it may never have to be written of it that it severed this 
glorious Union ! What is yet to be said of it noiv belongs to our next 
chapter ; for *' westward the course of empire takes its way," and with 
it goes its boundary controversies 



SUP PL E NI E NT. 



BOUNDARY CONTROVERSY WITH VIRGINIA. 



The further history of this celebrated line belongs to another of the 
controversies through which Pennsylvania has had to pass to establish 
her boundaries. We refer to that which the peculiarities of her charter 
and the stirring events in the south-western corner of the province, 
during the twenty years preceding 1774, brought to a head between 
her and Virginia, just as the great contest between the crown and the 
colonies was heading up to revolution, which pervaded the entire period 
of that eventful struggle, and terminated almost cotemporaneously with 
its successful close. 

We cannot here narrate the events, or unfold fully the grounds of 
that once portentous strife. Its scope is too ample, and its amplitude 
too full of interesting and instructive teachings, to bear compression 
into what must be a mere appendage to the preceding sketch. The 
great subject to which it related was the extent and shape of our limits 
westward. We limit our design now to such an exposition only of its 
leading features as will fill out the history of our southern boundary. 
About four-fifths of the line was the result of a compromise to which 
Virginia was no party. North of 38° and the Potomac, she had to be 
silent. But west of the " meridian of the first fountain " of that river, 
she lifted up her voice loudly against "northern aggression;" not, 
however, as we shall see, to her very lasting advantage. 

As a colonial grant, Virginia never had any rights north of 40°. 
And upon her decapitation, by quo warranto, in 1624, she became a 
mere appendage of English empire, without any fixed boundaries, 
subject to having her limits impaired as often as it should please his 
Majesty to confer new grants out of her original domain. Maryland 
and North Carolina are thus derived. And yet, both as a colony and 
as a State, she has kept up continual claim to territory north of 40°. 
The "pan-handle" still rears its head above the 40th degree; and the 
doubtful recognition, since 1780, of her vaunted claim to the great 



250 THE MONONGAHELA OP OLD. [SUPP. 

territory north-west of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, attests her 
pretentions in that direction.^ With this we have here nothing to do. 
But we may well challenge her right to intrude within the limits of a 
specific grant, carved out of territory which ^he never owned. Indeed, 
she claimed that the extinction of her charter enlarged her bounds; 
that thereupon, she became keeper for the king of all contiguous terri- 
tory not rightfully held by some other colony. It was ui)on this 
pretense that she assailed Pennsylvania. The posture was plausible 
enough during her colonial vassalage. But upon her revolt from her 
kingly allegiance — asserting existence as an independent State — she 
forfeited her vice-regal prerogatives, and became shut up to the terri- 
tory which, without encroachment upon her neighbors, she had settled 

j and governed. And yet Pennsylvania had to contend with her in both 

H. these characters. 
J The site of Pittsburgh, and the Indian trade which centred there, 
became early the objects of Virginia cupidity. Her efforts to acquire 
these brought on the French war of 1754-'63, in which Washington 
rose and Braddock fell. It was upon the laggard defence, and almost 
abnegation of ownership, of her ultramontane territory, by Pennsyl- 
vania, in the early stages of this war, that Virginia based her claim as 
the king's representative. She turned upon the sons of Penn the 
battery which he, in 1682, raised against Lord Baltimore's right to 
Delaware. The position taken was that the Penns, by suffering the 
French to conquer all west of the mountains, thereby rendering it 
necessary that it should be re-conquered by his Majesty's arms, had 
forfeited, to that extent, their chartered limits; and that U|)on its retro- 
cession by France to the British king, in 1763, it became his again 
" to give as he pleaseth." The argument, when tested by the rules of 
right and the truth of history, turns out to be more specious than solid. 
It was soon superseded by other pretexts which were thought to possess 
greater potency. 

The natural connections of South-western Pennsylvania were with 
Maryland and Virginia. These were greatly strengthened by the 
opening of the old Ohio Company's path, afterwards Biaddock's road, 
from Wills' creek (Cumberland,) to the head of the Ohio, and the 



1 We are aware that we are treading here upon tender ground. But, were this the place to 
do it, it could readily be shown that the postulate of Mr. Chief Justice Taney, in Dred Scott vs- 
San/ord — that " this immense tract of country M'as within the acknoirledged limits of the State 
of Virginia," is an entire reversal of the truth of history. Her claim was only a claim, and so 
regarded by the old Confederacy Congress. 



SUPP.] VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 251 

events of the French war. The early settlers came almost wholly from 
middle Virginia and Maryland, upon the Potomac, bringing with them 
a hereditary dislike to Pennsylvania rule and manners, and squatting 
down upon what they supposed was Virginia territory. Hence when, 
in 1769, the Penns began to sell their lands at £5 per one hundred 
acres, and, in 1771, by the erection of Bedford county, extended over 
them the arras of government, with its restraints and taxes, repugnance 
soon rose to resistance. 

At this opportune crisis Virginia, under the governorship of Lord 
Dunmore, late in 1773, interposed to assert her jurisdiction. The 
disputed territory was made the western district of Augusta county, 
with Fort Pitt as the seat of dominion. The invasion was at once both 
civil and military. Early in the same year Pennsylvania had erected 
the county of Westmoreland over all her western territory, with her 
seat of justice at Hannastown. At first the conflict was fierce and 
alarming. His lordship, finding a fit instrument of mischief in one 
Doctor John Connolly,* with numerous subordinates and a ready popu- 
lace, held his usurped possession with unyielding tenacity. Pennsyl- 
vania officers were contemned and resisted, her justices imprisoned, her 
jail broken open, and her courts broken up. Vagaries and enormities 
were for a while enacted, which find no parallel in any other period of 
our western history. To quell the tumult of the times, the Penns had 
recourse to negotiation ; but without any other result than to disclose 
more fully the conflicting claims of the parties. 

The reader will remember that the only fixed, natural landmarks 
named in the charter, by which to determine the form and extent of 
Pennsylvania, were New Castle town and the river Delaware. The 
latter was her eastern bounds; while the former was to be used as the 
centre of a circle of twelve miles radius, whose north-western segment 
was to connect the river with the " beginning of the 40th degree." 
Westward, the province was to extend " five degrees in longitude to be 
computed from said eastern bounds." 

The Penns now claimed, for their western boundary, a line beginning 
at 39°, at the distance of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware, 
thence at the same distance from that river in every point, to north latitude 



3 As an adventurer— tool of Dunmore— instigator of Indian war— Tory— prisoner— and in 
1788, fomentor of troubles in Kentucky, the life of this renegade son of Pennsylv.ania is one of 
peril and mischief. The curious reader may trace him in Washington's Journal, 1770, Nov. 22. — 
4 Pa. Archives, Index " Connolly "—1 Olden Time, 520—2 Ditto, 93—3 Sparks' Washington, 211, 269, 
271—8 Ditto, 25-9 Ditto, 474, 485— Western Annals, 492. 



252 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [SUPP. 

42°, so as to take into the Quaker province some fifty miles square of 
North-western Virginia, west of the Avest line of Maryland. Dunmore 
scouted this claim and difficult-to-be-ascertained line. He insisted that 
our western boundary should be a meridian line run south from the end 
of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware, on line 42° ; which, 
said he, will throw the western line of Pennsylvania at least fifty miles 
east of Pittsburgh. This pretense was based upon the belief that the 
Delaware continued to 42° the north-eastward bearing, which changes 
to north-west at the eastern corner of Pike county — so little was then 
known of our interior geography. The next expedient by the Penns 
was to propose Mason and Dixon's line to the Monongahela, and thence 
that river to the Ohio, as a temporary boundary^. This, too, was 
rejected ; his lordship saying that upon nothing less than his Majesty's 
express command would he relinquish Pittsburgh. Here negotiation 
ended; and violence and oppression continued their sway, until checked 
up by more absorbing interests. 

The outburst of the Revolution, in 1775, and the fall of the Dun- 
more dynasty, produced a lull in the storm of inter-colonial strife? 
^Partisans became patriots, and rushed with eagerness to repel a common 
foe. For a brief period the civil jurisdiction of Pennsylvania seems to 
have been yielded. Military control was all that Virginia exercised. 
But this blending of incoherent pretensions could not long endure. It 
severed, as soon as the first' intense fervors of revolution had cooled 
down, into an earnest struggle for independence. 

And now Virginia behaved towards Pennsylvania with an incon- 
sistency, if not cool vindictiveness, without precedent or palliation. 
On the 15th of June, 1776, her revolutionary convention, justly depre- 
cating the conflict of jurisdiction in the disputed territory, proposed to 
Pennsylvania a temporary boundary, which, they said, " would most 
nearly leave the inhabitants in the country they settled under ; " which 
boundary is as follows : from the north-west corner of Maryland to 
Braddock's road — by it to the Great Crossings of the Youghiogheny — 



3 As the Penns claimed it, not far from the true line ; which would have left Pittsburgh about 
six miles in Pennsylvania. 

i Among the most resolute of the Penn adherents were, Arthur St. Clair, then Prothonotary, 
&c. of Westmoreland, afterwards Major General, &c. and Thomas Scott, afterwards first Pro- 
thonotary of Washington, and first member of Congress from Western Pennsylvania. Of the 
Virginia partisans were Dorsey Pentecost, afterwards Clerk of Yohogania county, first member 
from Washington in Sup. Ex. Council of Pa.; Colonel William Crawford, who was burnt by the 
Ohio Indians in 1782 ; Colonel John Campbell, afterwards prominent in Kentucky ; George Croghan, 
Indian agent, &c. 



SUPP.] VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 253 

down that river to Chestnut Ridge mountain — along its crest to Green- 
lick run branch of Jacob's creek — down it to where Braddoek's road 
crossed — by the road and its continuation towards Pittsburgh to the 
Bullock Pens [a little north-west of Wilkinsburg], and thence a straight 
line to the mouth of Plum run [creek] on the Allegheny ! East of this 
Pennsylvania was to rule — west of it, Virginia. The Pennsylvania 
convention, in September, 1776, very properly rejected this proposal; 
because, being very wide of her true limits, its adoption as a temporary 
line would be productive of more confusion than if it was to be final. 

Ere the rejection of this preposterous proposition, the same Virginia 
convention that made it had, on the 29th of June, 1776, by her consti- 
tution, expressly *' ceded, released and forever confirmed unto the people 
of Pennsylvania, all the territory contained in her charter, with all the 
rights of property, jurisdiction and government which might at any 
time heretofore have been claimed by Virginia." At this time she 
well knew, from Mason and Dixon's measurements and otherwise, that 
much of the chartered limits of Pennsylvania must fall west of the 
proposed line, while no Virginia territory could lie east of it. Never- 
theless, during the further progress of the controversy she conformed 
her jurisdiction very nearly to this rejected line. 

The next movement by Virginia was a bold stride at dominion. 
Assuming that Pennsylvania, as well as Maryland, should not reach 
further west than the " meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac," 
she, by an Act of her Assembly, passed in October, 1776, proceeded to 
define the boundary between her east and west Augusta districts ; and 
having annexed some inconsiderable parts of her now north-western 
counties, and all "of Pennsylvania west of the aforesaid meridian, to the 
latter, divided it into three counties — Ohio, Monongalia and Yohogania. 
Nearly all of the last and much of the other two were composed of 
Pennsylvania territory. The last took in what are now the county seats 
of Washington, Fayette, Westmoreland and Allegheny, and all north 
of them. Under this law, justices' courts were regularly held^ — sena- 
tors and delegates to the Virginia Legislature chosen, and all the other 
functions of government, civil and military, exercised, from 1776 to 
1780. In the meantime Pennsylvania kept up her power, as well as 
she could, through her Westmoreland county organization, over the 
whole of her territory as she claimed it. There was literally an inipe- 

5 The Yohogania courts were held in the upper story of a log jail and court house, 24 by 16 
feet, on the farm of Andrew Heath, upon the Monongahela, at or near where Elizabeth now is. 
We have seen its Minutes. It did a large and varied business. 



254 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [SUPP. 

Hum in imperio, especially between Braddock's road and the Monon- 
gahela, which was perhaps the most densely setlled portion of the 
disputed territory. West of that river, except here and there upon its 
western shore and the south-east corner of Greene, Pennsylvania did 
not venture. Nor did she ever intrude her functions south of Mason 
and Dixon's line. 

The machinery of the new district counties worked badly, especially 
in its military movements, which at that warlike i)eriod were of primary 
importance. This, and a returning sense of justice, induced Virginia, 
in December, 1776, to propose an adjustment of the lines, as follows: 
extend the west line of Maryland due north to 40° — thence due west to 
the limit of five degrees of longitude from the Delaware — thence north- 
ward, at five degrees distance from that river in every part; or, if 
preferred, at proper points and angles with intermediate straight lines, 
to 42°: — thus cutting "a monstrous hantle out" of south-western 
Pennsylvania — overleaping the ancient 40°, but yielding to the Penn 
claim of 1774, which Dunmore so stoutly resisted. There would have 
been some force in this claim of Virginia to go up to the true 40°, had 
her charter of 1609 not been recalled; for it bounded her on the north, 
not by a degree of latitude, as was Maryland, but by two hundred miles 
of coast-line northward from Point Comfort. But as between Penn 
and the king, in 1681, the 40° of that day was the true limit of the 
grant. This offer was rejected also. 

The disheartening reverses and exhausting efforts of the Revolu- 
tionary struggle, during 1777 and 1778, withdrew the disputants from 
any attention to their boundary troubles. For a while the strife stood 
still, except that its inconveniences and conflicts upon the disputed 
territory were as perplexing as ever. Brighter auspices dawned in 
1779. Early in that year Pennsylvania proposed to Virginia a joint 
commission to agree upon their boundaries. The latter acceded. The 
commissioners met in Baltimore, and on the 31st of August, 1779, 
agreed upon the following boundaries :® " to extend Mason and Dixon's 
line due west five degrees of longitude, to be computed from the river 
Delaware, for the southern boundary of Pennsylvania; and tiiat a 
meridian, drawn from the western extremity thereof to the northern 
limit ofsaid State, be the western boundary of Pennsylvania forever." 

We know but little of what occurred at the meeting of these commis- 
sioners. A letter is extant from one of the Pennsylvania commis- 



6 The Pennsylvania commissioners were, George Bryan, Rev. John Ewing, D. D., and David 
Rittenhouse ; Virginia sent Right Rev. James Madison and Rev. Robert Andrews. , 



StJPP.] VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 255 

sioners — Jud^^e Bryan — saying that the Virginians offered to divide 
equally the 40th degree; but for what equivalent is not revealed.' 
There is a tradition, too, that the judge resisted all offer to extend 
Mason and Dixon's line to the Ohio. Doubtless this generosity on the 
part of Virginia was to be compensated north of that river. It is 
probable that, in this negotiation, the parties stood pretty much where 
they did in May, 1774 — Pennsylvania claiming down to 39°, and to 
have her western line an irregular curvilinear parallel to the Delaware,* 
and Virginia claiming to stop her, on the south, at 40°. The idea of 
making our western boundary to be a straight line, or chord, subtending 
the irregular arc formed by the two extremes of five degrees from the 
Delaware, on the north and on the south, seems never, at any time, to 
have been claimed or proposed. A chancellor might have so decreed 
without any violence to the charter. One is almost tempted to regret 
that the Pennsylvania commissioners had not claimed to turn round at 
Fairfax's stone and asked for all of Virginia north of 39°. They had 
as good ground for the whole as for part. And who knows but that a 
little more expanded pretensions in that direction might have induced 
the Virginians to give us the "pan-handle!" We must not, however, 
complain. They did exceedingly well. They probably did not know 
that there would be room there to turn' north of 39°. And it is for- 
tunate that Virginia did not know that when Pennsylvania, in 1771, 
erected Bedford county, she expressly recognized the ex parte extension 
of Mason and Dixon's line, west of Maryland, as her southern boundary. 
But the troubles were not yet ended. The agreement of the commis- 
sioners had to be ratified, and the lines to be run. Pennsylvania 
promptly assented to the "compromise" in November, 1779 — as well 
she might, seeing that it expanded her western territory full half a 
degree without any equivalent loss on the south. Virginia, perhaps, 
seeing this, held back ; and in December, 1779, sent into the disputed 
territory a court of commissioners to adjust land titles. No event in 
the whole controversy so roused the ire of Pennsylvania as did this 
attempt to dispossess her own settlers and adjudicate their lands to 



7 See 1 Olden Time, 451. 

8 The late Judge H. H. Brackenridge (Law Miscellanies, 254,) reverses this position of the 
parties. His views of the subject are palpably erronebus in other particulars; hence, very 
probably, in this also. If the parties stood as he places them, Pennsylvania got more than she 
claimed. 

9 It was at this date an open question whether Maryland would not begin her western line at 
the " first fountain" of the South branch of the Potomac. 



256 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [SUPP. 

claimants who had defied her jurisdiction. A very determined intima- 
tion that a continuance of the intrusion would be repelled by force, led 
to its withdrawal. Thereupon, in June, 1780, Virginia ratified the 
agreement; clogging it, however, with a condition which protected all 
the rights to persons and property which her settlers had acquired prior 
to that date, providing that rights to lands should be determined by 
priority of title or settlement, and be paid for to Pennsylvania at Vir- 
ginia prices, if acquired from her. Under these provisions many land 
titles in South-western Pennsylvania are held by patents based upon 
Virginia certificates, and west of the Monongahela there are many 
Virginia patents. They conduced to many troubles and hardships. 
Pennsylvania foresaw that such would be their fruits; and, therefore, 
for a while withheld her assent; but at length, in September, 1780, 
declaring herself "determined to give to the world the most unequivocal 
proof of her earnest desire to promote peace and harmony with a sister 
State, so necessary during this great contest against the common enemy," 
assented to the unequal condition. And here this boundary controversy 
closed — the last of the series which Pennsylvania has had to encounter. 

It remained yet to run and mark the lines. This it was intended to 
do, in 1781, permanently; but the pressure of the "great war of liberty" 
compelled its postponement. The withdrawal of Virginia, in 1780, 
from the disputed and ceded territory, called for the erection by Penn- 
sylvania, in 1781, of the county of Washington, comprising all of the 
State west of the Monongahela and south-west of the Ohio. This new 
organization imperatively demanded some ascertainment of its boun- 
daries on its two Virginia sides. A promise of a joint effort to do 
this, by a temporary line, in the fall of that year, failed of accomplish- 
ment on the part of Virginia. It was run in November, 1782, by 
Col. Alex. M'Clean, of Fayette, (then Westmoreland,) and Joseph 
Neville, of Virginia, from the war path crossing of Dunkard to the 
corner, and thence to the Ohio. They were instructed to extend Mason 
and Dixon's line twenty-three miles, which proved to be about a mile 
and a half too much ; — an error which occasioned some loss to certain 
Philadelphia gentlemen — the Cooks, and perhaps others, who, before 
the final running of the lines, had caused some land-warrants to be 
laid, abutting upon the temporary line, on the western border of, now 
Greene county. Less than twenty-two miles were wanting to complete 
the distance of the charter. 

Pending these delays Pennsylvania had no little trouble with many 
of her newly-acquired Washington county citizens, who hated her rule 



SUPP.] VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 257 

and resisted their transfer. They asked Congress, under :i provision in 
the old Articles of Confederation, to establish the curvilinear parallel 
with the Delaware, which would restore them to Virginia. Their pe- 
titions were unheeded. Whereupon they went deeply into a project for 
a new State, which was to include Western Pennsylvania, Ohio east of 
the Muskingum, and Virginia northeast of the Kenhawa, with Pitts- 
burgh as the seat of empire. It was a resurrection of the old " Walpole 
grant" of 1772.^" So rife had the scheme become, that Pennsylvania 
had to counteract it by all her power, declaring it, by an Act passed in 
December, 1782, to be treason. In many other ways her authority was 
contemned, her laws resisted, and her officers defied and maltreated. Es- 
pecially was this the case with her odious excise law. And in the re- 
sistance which it encountered is found the precedents for many of the 
excesses of the renowned "Whiskey Insurrection." Gradually, however, 
and by the countervailing infusions of a more thorough Pennsylvania 
population, the disaffection receded ; and nowhere, for at least half a 
century, has any people been more proud of their government, or more 
submissive to its requirements. 

It was not until 1784 that Mason and Dixon's line was completed, 
upon astronomical observations, and permanently marked. The great 
difficulty — the nice point, was to fix its western termination. To do 
this, some of the most scientific men of that day were employed. On 
the part of Virginia they were the Right Rev. James Madison, Bishop 
of Virginia, Rev. Robert Andrews, John Page and Andrew Ellicott, of 
Maryland. The Pennsylvania Commissioners were JohnLukens, Sur- 
veyor General, Rev. John Ewing, D. D., David Rittenhouse and 
Thomas Hutchins. They undertook the task from "an anxious desire," 
they say, "to gratify the astronomical world in the performance of a 
problem which has never yet been attempted in any country, and to 
prevent the State of Pennsylvania from the chance of losing many 
hundred thousands of acres secured to it by the agreement at Baltimore." 
To solve the novel problem, two of the artists of each State, provided 
with the proper astronomical instruments and a good time-piece, re- 
paired to Wilmington, Delaware — nearly on the line, where they erected 
an observatory. The other four, in like manner furnished and with 
commissary, soldiers and servants, proceeded to the west end of the 



10 Concerning "Walpole's grant," see Sparks' Washington, 356-7, and 483— Sparks' Life of 
Franklin, 339—3 Journals of Old Congress, 359—4 Ditto, 23—4 Pa. Arch. 483, 579. On the New 
S<o<e project, see 2 Olden Time, 470, 537— Brackenridge's Law Miscell. 511—9 Pa. Arch. 233, 316, 
324, 438, 444, 565, 572, 637—10 Ditto, 40, 41, 163. 



258 THE MONONGAHELA OF OLD. [SUPP. 

temporary line, near to which, on one of the highest of the Fish creek 
hills, they also erected a rude observatory. At these stations each 
party, during six long weeks of days and nights preceding the autum- 
nal equinox of 1784, continued to make observations of the eclipses of 
Jupiter's moons and other celestial phenomena, for the purposes of de- 
termining their respective meridians and latitude and adjusting their 
time-pieces. This done, two of each party come together, and they find 
their stations were apart twenty minutes and one and an eighth seconds. 
The Wilmington station was one hundred and fourteen (four pole) 
chains and thirteen links west of the Delaware. Knowing that twenty 
minutes of time were equal to five degrees of longitude, they make 
allowance for said one hundred and fourteen chains and thirteen links, 
and for the said one and an eighth seconds, (equal, they say, to nine- 
teen chains and ninety-six links,) and upon these data they shorten 
back on the line to twenty minutes from the Delaware, and fix the 
south-west corner of the State by setting up a square unlettered white- 
oak post, around which they rear a conical pyramid of stones, "and they 
are there unto this day."" 

There was no re-tracing of the line from the north-west corner of 
Maryland; nor was it measured from the end of Mason and Dixon's 
running to the cairn corner. All that was done was to connect these 
two points by opening vistas over the most remarkable heights and 
planting posts on some of them, at irregular distances, marked with P. 
and V. on the sides, each letter facing the State of which it is the 
initial. The corner was guarded by two oak trees, with notches in 
each, as watchers. It could not be too well secured ; for it, and the 
twenty-two miles from the war path, cost the State £1455 specie, equal 
to nearly $4000, besides six dollars per day to each of the "astrono- 
mers!"^" Their commissary was Col. Andrew Porter, father of ex- 
Governor David R. Porter. Being, at the western end, some "thirty 
miles from any settlements," his duties were exceedingly onerous. 
And here, near the end of 1784, ends the history of Mason and Dixon's 
line. 

The next year (1785) the western line, to the Ohio, and some forty or 
fifty miles beyond it, was run and marked in like manner, with the 



n See the Report in 10 Pa. Archives, 373, 374. 

i2They lived well. Among their "accommodations," ordered by the State, were 60 gallons 
spirits, 20 gallons brandy, 40 gallons Madeira wine, 200 pounds loaf sugar, a small keg of lime 
[lemon] juice, 6 pounds tea, 20 pounds coffee, 30 pounds chocolate, 20 pounds Scotch barley, &c. 
— "a ha'-penuy worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack." 



SUPP.] VIRGINIA CONTROVERSY. 259 

addition of deadening the trees in the vistas between the hills. The 
Pennsylvania artists were Col. Andrew Porter and David Rittenhouse ; 
those of Virginia, Joseph Neville and Andrew Ellicott, the latter acting 
for Pennsylvania north of the Ohio, where Virginia pretensions ended 
by reason of her cession of the Northwest Territory to the United 
States in 1784. It was completed to Lake Erie in 1786, by Col. 
Porter and Col. Alexander M'Clean. Its length is abont one hundred 
and fifty-eight miles. 

Thus honorably and successfully has Pennsylvania borne herself in 
all her boundary contests ; never encroaching upon her neighbors' 
rights, yet always gaining by their intrusions upon her territory. Her 
uniformly calm, patient, persevering defensive policy, begun by her 
Proprietors and perpetuated in the Commonwealth, has added one-fourth 
to the area of her chartered limits. Setting out in her controversial 
career upon the maxim : "Be just and fear not," the fiercest assaults 
never provoked her to retaliate, nor did the boldest invasions ever 
compel her to yield. And although it would be unkind, if not unjust, 
to accuse her invaders of willful aggression, we may safely say of them, 
as did Lady Macbeth of her ''thane :" 

" Wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win." 

In the ultimate accessions of both valuable territory and valuable pop- 
ulation, with which Pennsylvania was compensated for the troubles 
they gave her, may be read an instructive lesson to all the States, in 
the present and all coming time — never to encroach upon any of the 
rights of a co-equal Sovereignty. The redress of individual wrongs 
may be deferred to a future state of being, but the retributions which 
communities incur admit of no such postponement : 

"in these cases 
We still have judgment here; that we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return 
To plague the inventor " 



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